Garrett Burns - Part of Seeing God is Being in the Presence of Another
Exploring faith journeys and inspiring ministries that embody the good news of God, this is the Cumberland Road. I'm your host, TJ Malinoski. Today, Garrett Burns joins me on Cumberland Road. Garrett is the associate chaplain of Bethel University in McKenzie, Tennessee, and he serves as director of community engagement and the director of Whosoever Will Ministry Bridge. Garrett graduated from Bethel in 02/2010, and he's also a graduate from Memphis Theological Seminary with a master of divinity. He pastors the Fulton Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He's also a chaplain in the US Navy Reserve. And he's married to Jessica, and they have four beautiful children.
T. J.:Garrett, thank you for joining me today.
Garrett:Glad to be here, TJ. Thank you.
T. J.:It looks like you are a busy man.
Garrett:Yes. Yeah. Busy and and trying to stay full, keep the well full without, you know, going bone dry.
T. J.:Well, everything that you're connected to vocationally is ministry involved that had to begin somewhere. So let's go way back. And can you recall your earliest experience with God?
Garrett:As a child, and maybe this is for all children, but as a as a child for me, I think we get impressions of God through others. A lot of times we we don't know how to disentangle God's voice or see God for who God is. It's kinda like Samuel was with Eli. It's like, I thought that was your voice. Oh, but I need someone to tell me it was God's voice.
Garrett:So I think as a child, I had impressions of God. And the one I most remember was through my great grandmother. And, you know, we talk about patriarchy in The United States, but gosh, that wasn't my experience. It was matriarchy all through my family. You know, she was the center of the church and she was doted upon.
Garrett:She was one of the oldest members there. She was a widow. And I think that might've been an element because, you know, the church took care of her. And so I took pride in every Sunday. I had the opportunity to walk her up the steps, to open the door for her, to walk her to her pew, which was her pew.
Garrett:People knew it. And they anticipated and expected her to be there and just sit with her in the middle of a church service. And part of part of seeing God was being in the presence of a disciple who looked to God so intently and listened to God intently, who was very real and authentic. She was very down to earth, but she also lived it out. Her house was one that always had food on the table.
Garrett:It was a thoroughfare of people. You know, she lived through the great depression, the second world war. And so it was always, you know, cat head rolls, chicken and dumplings, full breakfast, you know, making fried eggs. We just celebrated a nanny day is what I called it on my Facebook feed. And I wanna teach my children so much about this woman that on the anniversary of her, well, it's her birthday, but she's since passed, we celebrated and had a nanny day.
Garrett:And you know, there's just food everywhere. And part of the gospel is centered around the table. And I just experienced that as a kid. There was always, it's like this theology of abundance. There's always enough.
Garrett:There were people I remember coming through her house, recognize them, I didn't know them. They were different colors. Even in a time of prejudice, intense prejudice in South Arkansas, they were never turned away from the table. And so I think that I saw it through her and I kind of wore it as a mantle. She made everyone feel like they were her favorite.
Garrett:You know, selfishly, want to say I was, but I think it was through her, not only in the church, but definitely in the church, but also at home. And I remember seeing God express through her the most.
T. J.:What expressions of God through your grandmother did she stamp on you that you were carrying into your relationship with Christ today?
Garrett:Definitely that that open door. I try to extend Christian hospitality in that way. She fed the pastor every weekend. Now I am a pastor and I get fed most every weekend by the Fulton CP Church folks. You know, they'll either pay for my lunch or they'll have somebody set up to feed me.
Garrett:But I think that I want to embody that as well. I try to do that. Having four young kids is difficult to be hospitable. And I'm a very polished person. I like appearances.
Garrett:Like I told you before we recorded, I'm a Martha, so I like a clean kept house. I like the dishes put away. And I always feel like that needs to be done before I invite people in. But that's not Christian hospitality. So I really try to extend that in the midst of my own idiosyncrasies.
Garrett:And that was definitely one of them. Humility is another one. Just a deep humility and common embrace. Those are things that I hope to carry, only memorializing her, but I really think they point to Christ. And I want people to see past my great grandmother into who Jesus is and what Jesus does.
T. J.:So have you always grown up in the church and always been connected to the life of the corporate body?
Garrett:Yes, as long as I can remember. In my testimony, my mother, a lot of my testimony is entwined with hers, but we, my parents divorced when I was two years old and it was a basically you go your way, I'll go mine. And in the midst of that brokenness and separation, my mother, you know, she wasn't always able to attend church, but she assured that we were there on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, Sunday night. And that was a conviction of hers to make sure that we were a part of the church community. And she would often work two jobs.
Garrett:She'd work weekends, she'd work evenings as a single mother. And the church embraced us as, they really did. They lived out that, the care for widows and young children that you see from Jesus. She wasn't a widow, but she was divorced. And in the midst of that, have a vulnerable young woman with two kids.
Garrett:So we would end up, some days we would walk out on the porch and there'd be a bag. We didn't know where it'd come from, but it'd be full of hand me down clothes for us. And, you know, we finally, as I grew older, my eyes, I began to see, you know, what people did and, you know, it was the church. The church was always there. And my mother met my stepfather through the church and he, that was, you know, I was six or seven then, and he assured a continued commitment.
Garrett:He is very authoritarian, but he's also very nurturing. He ensured that we were going to be in the church. And as long as we were in their house, this was a valued principle and truth that he wanted to convey because he believed in Christ and believes in Christ so much, and he wanted us to experience that as well.
T. J.:Can you recall or do you remember when your relationship with Jesus Christ began or is it became part of your, you know, your vision and part of your daily walk?
Garrett:Well, I I do consider, you know, we talk about call stories or our profession stories in two camps. And a lot of times there's your dramatic conversion, your Saul to Paul, and then there's your Samuel who was dedicated at the temple and lived in it. Mine's a crossroads of both of those. I really think the knowledge of our extent of God's grace upon our sin is necessary to salvation, to understand atonement. So, you know, my profession of faith began explicitly in the knowledge of sin at about 12 years old, my brother, he went and professed faith.
Garrett:You know, my pastor was Danny York at the time and Danny has a way of just such a evangelical enthusiasm and passion in his preaching. He's probably one of the few revivalist preachers that we kind of have around the denomination right now. And still, he just loves the Lord and is in love with Him to the point that I remember watching this man, would cry from the pulpit and I never had a model of that, a male model in my life to show that level of vulnerability, that level of love for something. Men don't cry. And Danny would, you know, he would weep sometimes from the pulpit because he was passionate about people coming to know Jesus.
Garrett:My brother was a first fruit of that. He got saved at, I think he was 11 or 12 years old. And I went there, he got all this attention. He got all these hugs and checks and just, he was doted over. The church celebrated him so much and I was so jealous.
Garrett:I professed faith the following Sunday. I wouldn't let my great grandmother or anybody else give him more attention than me. But it was sort of selfish and I knew my first profession was more about me than it was about who Christ was in my life. And so about a year later, I repented of that and reaffirmed my faith and knowledge of Christ's salvation over me. But before that, was things like, you know, as a child, it was things like the children's sermon.
Garrett:Reverend Hugh Hanna, he kind of looked like Jesus in my mind. He was tall, dark complected, you know, he had this beard and he would call us down for the children's sermon and he would give us candy. And it's just like, I don't know, how is this? This is probably what Jesus would do when he blesses the children. He probably had a pocket full of candy, whatever first century Hebrew candy was, Jesus had a pocket full of that.
Garrett:Even though it's not explicit in the text, but He was calling the kids to Him and He was blessing them. And so I remember feeling that presence with brother Hugh Hanna before I had a knowledge of my that specific revelation of who Jesus was in my life.
T. J.:Looking over the scan of your life, how has faith in Jesus Christ given you purpose? Purpose as a human being, as a minister, as a husband, as a father, as a sibling, and on down the line. How has it given you purpose?
Garrett:You know, I think that for one, all humanity seeks purpose. We wanna make sense of our lives, and we want our our lives to have meant something. And I think the greatest meaning that we can derive is that really we die to ourselves. I don't mean die to our ambitions or passions. You know, I've been having that conversation with Bethel students lately as to the gifts God's given them.
Garrett:They're good and God may be calling you to it to affirm those things, really dying to the part to where everything becomes about me. So I think it's been, you know, being a disciple of Christ has been healthy in remembering that I'm not the center of the universe as much as I'd like to assert myself to be there. I'm not God because our egos and our abilities can can lead us in that direction. So staying humbled is a part of that purpose. Jesus for me, he's kind of infused his life, death and resurrection gives me hope in all circumstances that no matter what I go through, he will be present with me.
Garrett:And even if it's in death and through death, life will bring me to glory in the midst of that. So there's nothing, you know, Paul talks about, there's nothing that will overtake me. I can't be defeated. So really I think that that's a part of this purpose too. My purpose in knowing who Jesus is, is being drawn into his presence evermore, no matter what happens on this earth.
Garrett:And then there's a very active purpose. That's very much my testimony, but sort of the active work that comes from that, it's so broad, you know, the body of Christ it's ever reaching and which is why when you read my bio, it's like all these things are so exciting and Christ needs workers. The field is ripe for the harvest and let's go, let's go do this. Opportunities And are endless for work within the church and work within the body because he's given us such a diversity of gifts to do those things. So I really think that, you know, even vocationally that so much of the world and so much of our opportunities and work that we can do for him are really endless.
Garrett:We just have to always point back to who he is and how he's inspired us to become what we what we are. Mhmm.
T. J.:Well, you had mentioned this. You know, our faith journey, each of us has has us transported and and traversing in in some form of ministry, whether we're ordained or not. And you are in involved in in many different things. So could you sort of share what associate chaplain and whosoever will and chaplain for US Navy Reserve and then serve in the Fulton Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Just kinda go over that and what would you want listeners to know about each of those?
Garrett:Yeah. I I guess I wanna back it up first because I tell this to a lot of the Bethel students who are experiencing the call of God in their life. The beauty of our denomination, I'm gonna be very Cumberland Presbyterian here, is that you're ordained to the the office of ministry of word and sacrament. And that is is a broad title. The work that you're doing, you might be pastor, prophet, priest, king, and even our confession talks about all the roles of ordained minister of words, word and sacrament, what that includes.
Garrett:So I feel that all of these specific roles that I feel are all tied for one into that role, that essential role of who Jesus is, what it means to believe and follow him, how I serve him as a leader. And that translates to all these other occupations. And that's central to all of them. And in fact, if you nurture that well and do it well, then you're enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to work within a lot of these other contexts, even simultaneously. I tell them that.
Garrett:I say, Look, you can do this if God calls you to it. I guess backing out of that, the many roles I've, I have, it's not as busy as what, it is busy, but I take discipline in my planner. I take discipline in communicating to my family And all of these roles, it takes active anticipation and communication to not be overwhelmed. There was a time where I was overwhelmed by the many roles that I had as Associate Pastor at First Cumberland Presbyterian. I really embedded within a lot of the church and it is part of the pastor's responsibility to know what's going on in the church.
Garrett:But it's also something I learned was that I have to trust others to do the work that God's called them to do. I have to also, lead them into those roles, call them with me, but also with the church at large, with Christ, call them with Christ and then show them how they can be a part of it instead of shouldering it for myself. So I'm not shouldering it as much. I learned that from experience. Now, if there's some things that I know, you know, if God wants us to do it, God's gonna send the people to do it.
Garrett:And if God doesn't send the people to do it, or if people aren't responding to that call, then whatever it is, is not going to happen or it's going to die. And I'm content with not killing myself to try to make something, to force something to work. If for one, if people aren't responding to the call or if maybe God's not calling us to do it. So it's definitely being much more responsive to what people are doing, where they're going in the midst of all of that. But do you want to respond to that before I jump into those roles?
Garrett:I don't know.
T. J.:No, please go ahead.
Garrett:Go ahead. Know, my primary call right now is to Bethel and I've told people that I'm passionate about Bethel. I don't feel led away from Bethel. The sub if you work at Bethel, you have more than one job. It comes with the territory.
Garrett:So as chaplain, I work primarily under Chaplain Ann Hames as the senior chaplain. As the associate chaplain, a lot of what we do is making sure that we have spiritual opportunities for students on campus, that we're providing them and worship opportunities, that we're counseling them as needed with their spiritual health overall, that we're advising the president's office or any other leadership about the spiritual climate on campus as best we can assess that. Me and Chap work really well together, which has kind of been synergetic. She's a visionary and I'm definitely sort of that executive person who will put the bones together and the wheels in motion to get things moving. So God has given us very diverse personalities and gifts that really work well together.
Garrett:She'll often tell me, like, she said, You're kind of the Solomon of the two of us. I'm more of the David. And she said, I'm definitely a truth teller. And I agree with that. She said, And you're a peacemaker.
Garrett:Those really work well together. So that's been, it's been such a rewarding experience for one to be discipled by CHAP, and, but to also work with ministry students and students from all different backgrounds. But my other roles in that with the ministry bridge, you know, that, that just sort of fell in my lap. I wasn't seeking that. We already work with ministry students.
Garrett:And for those who may be listening, who don't know much about the ministry bridge, we were gifted with a beautiful gift, for any ministry student who follows the traditional path within the Cumberland Presbyterian order of ordination to go to Bethel, to move on to MTS, and then to answer a call to a church, that they'll be gifted a thousand dollars a month for the first five years of their ministry. And it's to help incentivize, you know, work within the church, the small churches that are struggling to pay a living wage, and also to, you know, to have our pastors educated. So it's a win win win. It benefits Bethel, it benefits MTS, it benefits the church, it benefits the students. So win win win win.
Garrett:And the biggest thing on that is communicating it. Think that may be my biggest struggle right now with wearing all these other hats is getting the word out to churches and pastors who may have young people or old people who are discerning a call, you know, making sure we're in touch with our presbyteries and getting in the pulse of those students who would like to just hear about these opportunities. May be the hardest thing right now is broadcasting the news. But it's there. We have three or four that are in the process.
Garrett:We don't enroll until they join MTS because there's, you know, there's such four years while you're at Bethel, a lot can happen. So we really want students to have their Bethel experience and to be certain that they're continuing and progressing through this path to seminary. And then once they, their first semester of MTS is when I begin to enroll them in the process. So I have three that just enrolled that are at MTS right now. And then one is already receiving the ministry bridge.
Garrett:It's a gift. And at this time, and so just, just pray for continued, promotion of this. And this is actually helping that. So thank you TJ for doing that. But that's Bethel and that's, my community engagement is a really cool, it's a scholarship program.
Garrett:We work with after school kids at the local housing authority. MTS really equipped me for a lot of that community work because, you know, it's an urban center in Memphis. And I was a sociology major here at Bethel. I worked under Stacy Freeman who started the program. So as a Bethel student, I I knew what they were doing already.
Garrett:Then coming in as chaplain, Stacy basically handed me the reins because she's she's gone on to do global studies at this point. And she said, here's the program. So now I'm scholarshipping Bethel students to do community outreach. And that's an element of the church too. It's just, it's beautiful.
Garrett:It's like, yes, we can do this.
T. J.:Well, Garrett, where do you see God working in the world today?
Garrett:Oh, wow. I see it in our young people. I and I think I've I didn't write that down, you know, pre reading your questions. I do have a response to that that I wrote down, just in this moment, I do see it in our young people. I think we have some generations that are disillusioned with the coming, you know, the future of the church, but also the future of our nation and world.
Garrett:We have a lot of students who genuinely love and are seeking to serve Jesus. And so I see God at work in them. The church right now is being refined and the COVID has, you know, kind of triggered this, has been a catalyst for it, but it honestly may have just sped up the process of what we were already seeing, a decline within mainstream Christianity already. But the refining, I believe, shows who really loves him because it's not worth it to be Christian in the twenty first century. Twenty first century America, it's not necessarily advantageous to wear that label politically or economically.
Garrett:It can be depending on where you are, but it brings such strife with it at this point that it's not like it once was where people maybe became Christian because it was a network or because it was politically advantageous to do it or economically advantageous. It's not now. So part of this refining is seeing who loves and serves Jesus, even when it costs them something. And I'm not one to, you know, in The US I don't see I do believe persecution is there. Mine is, I think it's the lessening of liberties that maybe we took for granted being in a religious or pseudo religious secular society.
Garrett:I think the liberties that the Christianity and the church has experienced were a blessing and they were afforded unexpectedly or providentially, however you want to put it. But they're not always granted, not historically, not scripturally, not theologically. Those things are not granted. So even in the midst of this refinement, people who are holding and clinging to scripture in the cross are showing, you know, who really loves him at this point.
T. J.:That's a good comment that leads into this next question. A good segue is, what hopes what ideas do you have for the church presently and in the future?
Garrett:Oh, I I wish that was the hardest question.
T. J.:No. You had the magic wand if if there was a magic wand and you could wave it. What ideas? What hopes? What dreams do you have?
Garrett:We need to really pray more. We say we pray, we really need to pray. And we need to read the word more, just to read it and listen. So some meditation's involved in that and waiting on the word. And that's a very Sunday school answer, I know TJ, but I think if more people did it we would be much more united in who God was and listening to His voice.
Garrett:Repentance, that's a thing of the past. We need to repent. Collectively and individually, we need to repent. God's forgiveness and grace and mercies are ever ending, but I'm seeing an element of pride within the Christian community that is not scriptural. It's not biblical at all.
Garrett:And the resentment is not scriptural. The calls to violence are not scriptural, but I'm seeing people take God's word and corrupt it for their cause. That's heartbreaking. So I think we need to have more sobriety about who God is, about what his word is, about how to love each other. You know, when Christ tells us to love your enemies, that's that's in there.
Garrett:How how do we do that?
T. J.:So the studying and reading of the scriptures, do you envision that individually and corporately?
Garrett:Yes. Yeah. More individually, I think. I think we've really outsourced that spiritual growth. We have pastors who are celebrity pastors now, then the church, the megachurches at large, I think are an element of this outsourcing our individual spiritual growth and discipleship.
Garrett:I could be wrong, but I really think it needs to start with our own hearts individually and drawing together. I'm not advocating for just me and personal Jesus. We don't need nobody else because we do. But I do think we need to just take an active role in reading His Word and to be guided and sharing it with one another. Breaking bread, think, doing it around the table as his word shows us, where it's done best, around a meal.
T. J.:Well, Garrett, how can we continue to follow your faith journey since you seem to always be in motion? That
Garrett:was a part of my story too, is that when I was a kid, my mom used to take me to the doctor's office for different reasons, and I couldn't be still. My legs were always moving. It was perpetual motion. But, you know, there are times where I stop and pause, and I'm gonna be present with you even though I have lots of things on my schedule or or lots of things to do. But the easiest way is Facebook.
Garrett:I've gotten in trouble because I'm so open on my Facebook. It's I think I think it's public for one, which is my first mistake. I have a public profile. And, you know, I've I've put out some conspiracy theories out there just like I've shared a youtube video. It's like, oh, that's probably not a good idea.
Garrett:But but I've done my best to discipline myself to, you know, sharing what the work that we're doing more than anything else. And then family pictures and kids stuff and funny stories. So my Facebook page, Bethel has our website has community engagement, whosoever will. That's bethelu.edu. Fulton CP Church, I hadn't shared a lot about them, but they have a a page as well, a web page.
Garrett:You can find it. They have a Facebook page. We go live each Sunday. I was blessed with a church that already had a lot of technology in place to to make it through this transition with COVID nineteen. And very surprised me.
Garrett:A CP church in the middle of a cornfield with a Mac and and Media Shout seven. I'm like, how did that happen? That's an act of God. But Yeah. That's probably the easiest way.
Garrett:And then my cell phone's on my Facebook page. It's on the Bethel website. Website. So if anybody needs to call me or email me, it's all out there. Wow.
Garrett:You brave man. I know. It's crazy. The bed boundaries class, I I took it. MTS, I must have missed a few, but I've heard about it.
T. J.:Garrett, thank you so much for sharing your faith journey and sharing your time with me.
Garrett:Thank you, TJ.
T. J.:And thank you for listening to today's podcast. Grab a friend and travel with us on our next journey down Cumberland Road.
