Meet The Pastor
Fr. Garrin was born in Michigan and grew up in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia, and in rural Connecticut. That combination was confusing enough that somehow he found himself in an Army recruiter’s office, after which he did two and a half years as a tank driver, culminating in a combat tour during the first Gulf War. Having gotten that out of his system and having done his patriotic duty, he went to the University of Pittsburgh for a B.A. in English Literature. Since the rest of his family moved to the Pittsburgh area also, it became home.
After college, Garrin did a year of training for missions work with Youth With a Mission (YWaM). That included a month in Jordan and a month leading an outreach team at the 1996 Summer Olympics. In the course of that training, it became clear that God was calling him to the priesthood, so he went to Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA. Fr. Garrin spent three years as Curate at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, PA. Then he accepted the call as Rector of Holy Nativity in 2005.
Along the way, Fr. Garrin met and married the luminously beautiful Jenny Higgins. They have three brilliant daughters: Lucy, Eleanor, and Mary.
Fr. Garrin is a devotee of the writings of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He brews his own beer. And he thinks that the Church should be the center of everyone’s life.