Rev. Everett Garwood
Everett (Ev) Garwood was born in O’Neill, Nebraska and grew up on a cattle ranch in the
sandhills of Nebraska. Graduating from the University of Nebraska in January 1969 with a Bachelors in
Agricultural Economics and Education he taught vocational agriculture in grades 7-12 at Tri-County
Schools, DeWitt, Nebraska. While there he met his wife, Bonnie Larson, the home economics teacher,
and they were married on June 7, 1970.
In 1971 the Garwood’s returned to cattle ranching where Ev also worked as an area director for
Carnation-Genetics, Inc., and artificial insemination technician. As a layman Ev was increasingly
involved in his home church, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Atkinson, Nebraska, teaching confirmation
class, adult Bible classes, and Evangelism Explosion. When Ev began to wonder which “flock” or “herd”
he was caring for, he heard the call into full time ministry and entered Concordia Theological Seminary,
Springfield, in the fall of 1975. During the summer of 1976 he served a summer vicarage at St. Paul
Lutheran Church in Fairmont, MN, and then continued seminary studies again that fall as the seminary
moved to Fort Wayne, IN. In April 1978 he received a solemn appointment from the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod Board for Missions to serve as delayed vicar to the Lutheran Church in the Philippines
(LCP). After his year of vicarage there in the North Luzon Lowland District (NLLD-LCP), Ev was
conferred the Master of Divinity in the Fall quarter of 1979 and was ordained on February 17, 1980 at
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Candon, Ilocos Sur, the Philippines.
As evangelistic missionary Ev began new work in the provinces of Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur on
the northwestern part of the Island of Luzon. He established a student ministry and lay-training center at
Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, which served as a center for him in planting churches in the other towns of the
province. Ev’s ministry style was to always have a jeep load of young people traveling with him to the
outstations on weekends, discipling and training them on the go as he planted churches. During his first
nine years as a church planter he established the congregations of St. Paul, Christ the King, and St. Luke,
in three different barangays of the town of Badoc, Ilocos Norte, and Faith and St. Mark Churches, in two
different barangays of Sinait, Ilocos Sur. In addition he established preaching stations at many other areas
serving up to 13 preaching stations with his lay trainees. In addition, Ev served his NLLD Ilocano
speaking district as instructor and coordinator of Theological Education by Extension (TEE) for the
Lutheran Theological Seminary of the Philippines from 1982 to 1988. In this program he was responsible
for training district level evangelists, deacons, teachers and lay leaders in the congregations of the NLLD
for ministry in their local congregations and for new mission starts. In 1985 Ev pioneered a training
program for post-high school youth. His project study, funded by the Lutheran Women’s Missionary
League from Wisconsin, was entitled the Lutheran Volunteer Evangelists Corp (LVEC). From 1985 to
1988 Ev trained 12 young people to do preaching, teaching, and evangelism and sent them back to their
congregations around the district, most of whom have since gone on into full-time ministry.
In 1988 the Lutheran Church in the Philippines called Ev to serve as professor at the Lutheran
Theological Seminary in Baguio City and to help revamp the national training program for lay-leaders.
While at the seminary he taught classes in exegetical, systematic, and practical theology; began new
courses in discipleship, church growth, church planting and leadership development; served as director of
field education; and organized and directed a seminary choir/combo which toured many of the
congregations in the Lutheran Church in the Philippines.
In 1992 the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Mission Board reassigned Ev to a new challenge in
urban ministry in the city of Manila, where he was tasked with transitioning the International Lutheran
Church from a traditional model to cell-based ministry. During this time he attended training in cell
church in Seoul, Korea. While in Manila he also served on the board of directors and as chairman, for the
Concordia Children’s Services, an orphanage and ministry to street children.
The Garwoods returned to the U.S. October 1995 and from March 1996 to January 2001 he
served as pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church and School in Omaha, NE. While at St. Paul, Ev established
a cell ministry, a recovery program for addicts, a jail ministry, and a half way house for ex-felons under
the incorporated non-profit, New Hope Fellowship. In April 2001 he was called by the CaliforniaNevada-Hawaii District of the Lutheran Church as Mission Developer to Dayton, NV, where he
established the River of Life Lutheran Church.
In January 2007 Ev began serving Faith Lutheran Church, Yerington, as vacancy pastor. In
January 2008 the congregations of River of Life, Dayton, and Faith Lutheran, Yerington, formed together
as a dual parish and called Pastor Garwood to be their full time pastor. Since January 2009 Pastor
Garwood has also been the supervising pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, Hawthorne, NV, where he
preaches and leads worship service one a month, and performs the baptisms, weddings and funerals.
The Garwoods have five grown and married children: the Rev. Burt Garwood (wife Michele),
Leawood, KS; Mrs. Emily Hart (husband Rev. Leigh Hart) of Glendale, CA; and Mrs. Elaine Vogan
(husband Drew), of Littleton, CO; Philip Garwood (wife Heather), at Western Seminary, Portland, OR;
and Jared Garwood (wife Meredith), of Omaha, NE. They have five granddaughters, Megan Hart, Adell
Hart, Sophia Hart, Sarah Garwood, and Hannah Garwood, and four grandsons, Ethan Hart, Josiah Hart,
Simon Garwood and Micah Garwood.