Fred Garmon was born in 1957, the baby of eight, an unplanned child to a mother of 38; a child that most likely would have been aborted today. Nevertheless, he was brought into a simple home in Charlotte, NC.

At the age of nine, he would be awakened by gun shots outside his home, only to find his sister shot and killed. Within nine months, his mother would also be dead. An overwhelmed father would be caught in the vortex of disillusionment, trying to survive by withdrawing into alcoholism. The abandonment was not planned, it just happened. Left much on his own by his reclusive, grieving, alcoholic father, at twelve years old he was sharing life and drugs with other children of brokenness who had become his “family.” We call them “gangs.” By age fifteen, experimentation had moved to addiction. 

Following his third arrest, he was expelled from school and from his home state for one year. Allowed to return at age sixteen, he walked hesitantly into a church worship service in January of 1974, dressed in disheveled clothes with long hair and pierced ears, all statements of the 1970 rebellious age. As the worship began, something started to happen. Acceptance, Identity, Hope, Release, Love, Family; all these and more seemed to descend on him like a waterfall.  This was not a hallucination. It seemed more real than anything he had ever encountered in his sixteen years of chaos. That day he invited the Lord Jesus Christ into his life to be his Savior and His Lord, one who would never leave him or forsake him. 

He was invited to return and share his testimony that same Sunday evening.  With the fervency of biblical Zaccheus, he went home and discarded nearly every evidence of the identity and acceptance he worked so hard to gain.  By that night, everything from the long hair and earrings to the disheveled clothing was abandoned. For him, all these were instantly recognized as counterfeit substitution for what he now held in his heart. They were no longer necessary. 

That night he returned to church. As he stood and began to tell his story, something happened. As the first words came from his lips, it was as if something of a different world entered the moment and altered the atmosphere. This, as well, was no hallucination. Little did he know it would be the first of thousands of times he would declare the wonders of the gospel of Jesus Christ before a listening audience.

Today, Fred holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies from Lee University and a Master of Divinity degree from the Church of God Theological Seminary with an emphasis on ministerial ethics. Dr. Garmon also holds a PhD in Organizational Leadership from Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

A University level lecturer and instructor— Fred integrates 25 years of practical ministry experience as a local church Pastor with years of academic preparation in the field of Leadership Studies.