Garrett Benjamin :: Southeast

Garrett Benjamin :: Southeast

"Garrett Benjamin is a guy who does not do anything halfway," says Southeast Campus Pastor, Dave Obwald.  "He runs at faith and life full speed and loves to do all of it with people.  The worship team at Southeast is more a family than a group of musicians and singers larger because of Garrett's leadership and 'let's do it together' mentality."  

Creating a family atmosphere among a group of musicians clearly comes naturally to Benjamin who comes from a family of musicians and teachers.  Benjamin's mother, currently a teacher at Fresno Christian Schools who gives private piano lessons in her free time, started teaching Benjamin to play the piano at age four.  He has a sister who is a music major at Azusa Pacific University and a sister studying elementary education at Fresno Pacific University.  His parents lead worship together at their church every Sunday.

While he says his initial reason for getting involved with The Well Worship ministry was to become more equipped as a worship leader and musician, Benjamin's reason for continued involvement is the community of people he's apart of at the Southeast Campus; a community he has helped build.  "He has a heart for authentically helping people connect to God through music and community.  He's more than a worship leader, he's a partner in ministry at the Southeast campus of The Well," says Obwald.  God-given character and a vivacious personality can be attributed for Benjamin's success as a Southeast Band Leader and "ministry partner," but he didn't come the The Well with a shortage of worship experience either.  In fact, Benjamin has been leading worship since 2003 and even held a staff position at Clovis EV Free as a High School Worship Leader from 2005-2008.

Benjamin's future goals as a musician include learning to play the violin, bass guitar, and electric guitar well.  His primary instrument, after abandoning piano lessons at age 10 which he says is his "biggest regret," is the acoustic guitar.  He owns a Larrivee LV-05E Acoustic/Electric Guitar with a Fishman Pro, a Fender Acoustic/Electric DG22CE NAT with a Fishman 7, an L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI, a Monster Acoustic Instrument Cable (12 ft - straight 1/4 plugs M ACST-12), and a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Pedal Tuner - but the instrument he loves to play at the beach is his Big Baby Taylor!  His dream gear, however, is a Gibson Songwriter Deluxe Studio EC Acoustic-Electric Guitar.  

His dream gig would be to play alongside Hillsong United or any of the Passion Conference artists.  With his catalytic charm we don't doubt that we'll see him worshipping with Brooke Fraser or Steve Fee one day!  He's been most influenced musically by MercyMe, Switchfoot, Nickel Creek, Coldplay, Worship Circle, Charlie Hall, and Shane & Shane.  His musical role models are Ben and Robin Pasley of Enter the Worship Circle and the Passion Conference artists (David Crowder, Charlie Hall, Matt Redman, Kristian Stanfill, Tim Hughes, and Shane & Shane).  If he could study under any musicians in the world, Benjamin would want to learn from Chris Thile, Jason Upton, and Shane Barnard.

Despite his high aspirations as a musician and his incredible involvement in the worship ministry at The Well, Benjamin's career ambitions and education have nothing to do with music.  He hopes to become a "great high school biology teacher" and coach high school golf and wrestling.  Benjamin is not only a great musician and leader, he's also ridiculously intelligent!  He has a B.S. in Kinesiology, a B.S. in Biology, and a B.A. in Natural Science from CSU Fresno.  He is currently a Summer Research Intern for NASA Ames in Mountain View, CA.  As Obwald puts it, "he is kinda a dork, in a really good way!"  

Benjamin's hobbies include adventures through the wilderness on his Honda CBR Motorcycle and Jeep YJ, playing golf, disc golf, tennis, rock climbing, cliff jumping, and snowboarding.