Martin Garrison is the new pastor of St. Peter’s Church of Coupland. Today was his first official day on the job. His first sermon as the pastor of St. Peter’s will be on Sunday.
I visited with him a few days ago. My first impression was that he is not as young as I had expected. There was wisdom and maturity behind those eyes. He is very easy to talk to and I spent quite a bit more time than I had intended.
He told me he went to high school in Hurst, which is in the mid-cities area of Dallas-Fort Worth. He attended the University of Texas, studying journalism and computers. He worked in television for a while as a Newscast Director. He also did some commercial copy and was the video editor for Central Texas Gardner on KLRU. That period was eight years of his life. He also did some residential remodeling before he decided to attend the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
I asked what led him to enroll in seminary. He said that because he had attended loving churches as a youth, he grew up to love church. When he was about 30 years old, he was reminded of his love for church by listening to books on tape while doing his remodeling work. He specifically mentioned Gilead, a novel by Marilynne Robinson. He also said that Bobbi Kaye Jones, a Methodist pastor in Austin, encouraged him.