Mistakes In The Past, Pastor In The Future

Garret Shelsta used drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism in his past, now he is a Christian pastor

Story by JAKE GREGG

Sitting in a crowd of around 300 people, all eyes are pinned to the man on stage. His slicked-back black hair and well-dressed stature is not the only reason people are paying attention to him, though.

Garret Shelsta is a gifted communicator who uses both his mouth and arms to speak. He waves his hands around like they have a personality of their own, yet they are under perfect control.

This isn’t your typical pastor.

When he gets up to preach, he starts every sermon with one important aspect of attending Ekklesia, an off-campus college ministry in Bellingham. The church is primarily for 18 year olds to 25 year olds. The one rule they have: no perfect people are allowed.

This rule pertains to not only those in the crowd, but also to Shelsta.

Garret, half Filipino and half Norwegian, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, in a neighborhood vibrant with people of color, including himself. His parents raised him to be a Christian and he was baptized as a baby.

The oldest of five, Garret was seen as a role model by his younger siblings.

In fifth grade his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Garret said only a handful of students were people of color like himself.

“I really had a hard time fitting in and I didn’t know why for the longest time,” Garret said. “But a huge part was culture.”

Garret joined a group of friends in middle school but, struggled to connect with them.

“Some of my supposed best friends would call me things like diarrhea face,” Garret said. “You don’t know how to react to that as a kid.”

Garret found a home in theater, where people were accepting and loving. Through theater, Garret was surrounded by both middle and high school kids. He was first exposed to alcohol and drugs around age 13.

Garret began casually drinking and smoking weed on the weekends but soon started doing so regularly. What once was used for relaxing started to be used to self-numb.

Garret felt the pain of leaving his friends from Arizona, the pain of being made fun of for his race and the pain of not belonging in a community at school. Drinking let him numb this pain.

“There were weeks in high school that I don’t remember because I was drunk and high in class everyday,” Garret said.

Garret lived in a house in the country of Broomfield. For fun, his friends and him would steal alcohol from his friend’s parent’s liquor cabinet and go out to a field. They would smoke and drink whatever they had on hand.

“Let’s build some crazy bike jumps, just totally plastered out of our mind and see what tricks we can do,” Garret said. “Let’s build an ax target and throw axes at it and see what would happen if someone ran in front of it.”

The concept of no perfect people being allowed at Ekklesia started before Garret became a pastor. The idea is one he connects with well.

Garret said God has the capability of taking a broken person and turning them into someone beautiful. Those who are most broken and turn to Jesus are the ones in many cases who end up being the biggest followers of God, he said.

“If someone’s debt is great and someone forgives that debt, their gratitude is going to be so much significantly more than someone whose debt is small and they are forgiven,” Garret said. “God leverages and uses the people he interacts with, and people who come join are people with great debts. They come from profound levels of brokenness and outsiderness.”

As a kid Garret didn’t realize this. He only saw himself as broken, not beautiful.

He attended a party in the ninth grade. Garret brought alcohol. A 14-year-old girl who attended the party got too high and drunk.

“She was totally passed out, vomiting everywhere,” Garret said. “We called the hospital. Anytime there is a 14-year-old who is admitted with alcohol there is an investigation and they found out that I brought it.”

The police showed up to his house and told Garret’s parents he brought alcohol to the party. He said looking back, the way his dad handled this situation with a firm, yet gentle approach helped him realize the support he had.

His dad woke up the rest of the house, sat them all down at the table and had Garret explain what happened.

“I was expecting to have the hammer come down super hard and now that I look back it I don’t know why [I thought that] because that’s honestly not who my parents are,” Garret said. “But I was just met with so much grace. It was like ‘Hey Garret, we love you. Let’s talk about this,’ rather than it being about guilt and shame.”

His family saw Garret was hurting so they wanted to have an open conversation about why.

Garret’s dad, Jerry, said his younger siblings looked up to him. Jerry’s philosophy as a parent is to treat his kids as people, not as a children. He wants his family to have pride in themselves and each other, treating each other with respect.

Both Garret’s mother and siblings got very emotional that night because of how disappointed they were in him, Jerry said.

“Man, that just tore Garret up, but in the right way,” Jerry said. “We wanted him to feel responsible for being irresponsible.”

Jerry said when Garret saw his siblings cry because of his actions, it was eye-opening.

“Garret died 1,000 deaths sitting in front of his family,” Jerry said.

Garret was later arrested by the police for charges of minor in possession and had a probation court order for providing a minor with alcohol. He had to attend classes with his dad, where they talked about drug and alcohol abuse.

During these classes Garret made the personal choice to quit drugs and not drink until he reached 21 years old.

He began to realize the true nature of his brokenness and soon turned to God instead of drugs.

Garret chose his senior year of high school to get baptized again but this time by his choice; not because his parents wanted him to be a Christian.

“I became a Christian in a more intentional and devoted sense,” Garret said. “It’s not just something my parents raised me to do. This is something I wanted to cultivate in my own life.”

Garret met his wife at college where he was a Bible studies major. They now have four kids together.

After graduation Garret lived in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife for some time until they both decided their purposes there was finished.

This was when Todd King, Garret’s small group leader, called and told him about Ekklesia.

Todd met Garret in 1995. As Garret’s small group leader, Todd was able to see Garret grow throughout middle and high school.

Todd is a lead pastor at Christ the King Community Church. Ekklesia is affiliated with the church.

When a position opened up at Ekklesia, Todd’s first thought was Garret.

“He’s highly intelligent, thoughtful and has been through woundedness and brokenness,” Todd said. “That’s very relatable, especially to those wrestling through those problems in the college years.”

Garret soon became a pastor with Ekklesia.

“The heart of Ekklesia is to be connected to people,” Garret said. “For people to feel like this is their spot, there needs to be meaningful relationships and work.”

Garret now provides college students the opportunity to find these connections through Ekklesia.

“Looking back, there was a chasm I could have jumped down,” Garret said.

Garret is now on a stage. His arms are swinging wildly but with purpose, his relationship with God is on display and his brokenness is out in the open for everyone to see.