Oasis Story: Garfield Lowe

383 days ago by Jenn Collins

Hi, my name is Garfield. My wonderful wife, Marsha, and I have been married for eight years and we have a lovely five-year-old daughter. We have been attending Oasis Church Hollywood since 2006. I currently serve as a Community group leader/facilitator, Host Pastor for Wednesday night, member of the church council and I serve as a member of Hollywood’s praise team.

I have been asked to share my story with you. If it had a title it would be, “The Lord is my shepherd and I was his stubborn sheep”, and if I had time it would be a book. The part of my story that I will share with you is not a riveting Saul to Paul, road to Damascus, conversion tale but more a story of growth.

I am a PK (Pastor’s Kid) who formally accepted Christ at the age of 16. For those of you who are not familiar with the general perception, PKs are generally thought of as being very rebellious. Though I had my periods of quiet rebellion I was always actively involved in some aspect of church – the choir, the youth group, the young adults group, the men’s fellowship, the church board. My greatest struggles, and periods of greatest growth, occurred when I was living outside of Jamaica and separated from my home church. These were the periods where I would look for a new church and, not finding any that was exactly like mine, would eventually opt not to attend church.

In my “wisdom” I was very critical of any church that I visited. In retrospect I can say that when visiting a church I literally searched for a reason not to be a part of the church. If the people were not immediately friendly, I would leave. If the service was too long, I would leave. I would listen attentively to the message, not to learn but to hear some error or flaw that would justify my leaving that church. This attitude began to change when my wife and I joined a small church in Gainesville, Florida. To give you an idea of how small the church was, on average we would have 20 people in church on a Sunday, counting the Pastor and his family of five.

Now the people were friendly however, the service was long (two hours on a normal Sunday) and I did not agree with everything that was said from the pulpit. There is no apparent logical explanation as to why I did not leave that church. Maybe God was tired of me having “one night stands” with different churches and wanted me to commit to one. I am glad that I did just that. At the small church in Gainesville I learned two important lessons. I learned that we do not have to agree with everything that is said in the pulpit. What is important is that we share the core belief of one true God and Jesus Christ as our Savior. With that as our foundation, we should be able to discuss our different views (because sometimes that was all it was… our views). Through discussion comes learning, and through learning, growth.

At that small church I also began to learn how to be a willing servant. Normally when asked to serve in any capacity in church my gut reaction would be “No” and the excuse would be “I don’t have the perfect skill set for that task.” I don’t consider myself a good pianist but I played at this church because they needed a pianist. I never considered myself a good singer but I led the praise and worship because there was a need for one. I learned that it is not about what we think we can’t do, but what we can do with our God-given abilities to serve God’s purpose through the church.

If you were to ask me what God has done for me I would have to say he worked on correcting my attitude to serving and church and he brought me to a church (Oasis) where I have been able to continue to serve and, through service, grow.