The Rev. Charley Garrison is Senior Minister of Central Texas Metropolitan Community Church and identifies as a gay man, political activist, preacher, teacher, servant, and Christian.

Charley was born in 1957 in southwest Louisiana and in 1975 moved to Baton Rouge, where he spent the next 20 years.  It was in Baton Rouge, as an AIDS activist, that he discovered Metropolitan Community Churches and began to integrate his spirituality, his sexuality, and his passion for justice.  It was also while in Baton Rouge that he took up the call to enter ministry.  He received his educational requirements through Samaritan Institute for Religious Studies and was ordained to ministry by Metropolitan Community Churches in 1998.  Shortly thereafter, he served briefly as the Director of The Living Room, a day center for HIV+ adults, and a ministry of MCC of Greater New Orleans.

In November of 1999, he was appointed as the Interim Pastor of Central Texas MCC.  The match was a good one — so good, in fact, that the congregation called him to be their permanent pastor in November 2000.

Since then, he has worked diligently to serve, not only the members of the church, but the greater community of Waco.  And through his encouragement and sermons, the members of Central Texas MCC have learned to embrace their sexuality as gifts of God.  They have developed programs to serve the hungry within their community, they have found a voice to speak out for equal rights for all people, and they have taken up a much-needed ministry to people living with HIV.