Pastor John, his wife Nikki, and their family moved to Griffin in November of 2020 from Dickinson, ND. Nikki is a Georgia native from Ellaville. I, Pastor John, grew up in a military home, and moved to GA when I was 13 years old. As a teenager, I felt the call of God on my life only to decided I knew knew what was best for me. I joined the USAF after High School, and I went through some pretty hard times in my life. In my mid 20's, I completely turned my back on God and the church. Through the efforts of a praying family, I made my way back to God in my mid 30's. Shortly after I felt God calling me to ministry again, but did not see any way I could go about answering the call. While deployed in Afghanistan in 2010, God made the call very clear and very loud! Once I returned home from my deployment, the Lord made open all the doors so I could respond to His call to the ministry. Our first ministry was to a small church in Dickinson, ND we called the edge of the known universe. We loved our time and the people there, and really hated to leave. God called us to come home to GA. When Griffin First extended the call to us we were happy to follow and see what God has planned for us, Griffin First and the surrounding area. To God be the Glory.
Staff
Hello. My name is Maya Masi. My husband, Peter, and I have been married for 22 years, and we have 3 awesome kids- ages 13, 7 and 3. We love to hike, camp, Geocache, play video games and generally goof off. We are also a homeschooling family for the past 10 years.
I took over as Children's Director in 2020, but have been a member of the church since 2013, when we moved to Georgia from South Carolina. I'm very excited about the chance to work with kids, and along with some wonderful volunteers, help them grow in their faith.
We invite you to join us as we work together in serving the Lord and others. Our ladies group has four main purposes:
- To encourage and support each other as we navigate through life in our various rolls as wife, mother, daughter, growing Christian, etc.;
- To reach out to the community in missions and love representing Jesus Christ to the world;
- To minister to those in the church family;
- To offer ladies the opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.
Our activities and meetings help us to fulfill these purposes.
- Monthly:
- SALT meetings (Serving and Learning Together). These meetings vary with service projects, special speakers, and usually have some kind of structure.
- Social Escape: This meeting is always program free. This is a time for you to come, relax, enjoy good fellowship, enjoy some good snacks, share something on your heart, etc. We have board and card games for fun, and if that's not your cup of tea, you can always bring some craft project to work on instead.
- Weekly:
- We have a ladies' Bible study every Wednesday evening at 6:30 pm at the church, where we work through a topic or book of the Bible. There is time for prayer requests and discussion of what we are studying.
- Other:
- Annual ladies' retreat in Adrian, GA at the Nazarene campground. This if focused time to hear the Word of God preached, worship God together, and get to know each other even better.
- Through out the year we may add opportunities for service or growth as they come to our attention.
- Missions:
- We help our Nazarene Missions International Director with annual projects connected to the Nazarene church.
- We also look for opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus with other organizations outside the Nazarene denomination.
We can't promise to fulfill all your needs, only Jesus can do that. But we can promise to come alongside you in this crazy life we live. Lets work together in serving each other and Jesus Christ.
Tina Noulis is the Ladies Ministry Director. She has a passion for seeing our women love God and His Word, be the Christians that God would have us be, and find those ways we can work together to fulfill the great commission.
About me Marty Gunter I started coming to this church 40 years ago I was 12 I enjoyed the other teenagers but as alot of teenagers do when I turned 16 and started driving I didn't want to come, but as I still lived at there was no discussion my parents said if you live under our roof you will go to church. So as soon as I turned 18 I was out the door and church. I visited here and there had some bad relationships I met my wife now of 26 years I was 26 she was 21, she was in church so I decided to start going back but I wanted to go back to my old church. So we have now been coming here a little over 26 years for years I considered myself a Christian I was a good man but no where near perfect but I tried. My parents had adopted a little girl Chloe and in 2011a tornado hit us we lost everything including my parents but Patti, Chloe, and Myself were spared. I did a lot of thinking about my life and what would have happened had I died to so started trying to lead a new life more pleasing to God and everyone else. We began raising Chloe as our on as she got older and we met more of her friends I could tell a lot of family's needed God, so when the opportunity came up to be the youth director here at the church I asked for a chance I have been doing it for about 3 years now and I still Love doing it.