People of Parkside

Meet Josh Griswold, Parkside's newest pastor.

Josh, his wife Andrea, and daughter Addison have recently moved to the area to serve us here at Parkside. Josh will be overseeing the Care, College, and Singles ministry. We recently asked Josh some questions to help get to know him better.

How did you come to faith in Christ?
Although neither of my parents were Christians in my early years, they themselves came to Christ while I was growing up. I count it an extreme blessing to have been raised in a Christian family throughout much of my later childhood. During my later years, I distinctly remember waking up to find my father intentionally spending devotional time in the Scriptures or observing my mother lovingly preparing countless dinner gatherings for people in our community. Through this, my father consistently demonstrated to me where the authority for dedicated faith and practice come from and my mother demonstrated to me what serving God and ministering compassionately to others holistically from one’s life could look like.

While I was raised in a Christian home for the most part, I searched for significance and acceptance through performance and relationships elsewhere. I found myself pleasing people on every front so that I would be accepted. When my family took me to church, I would behave in such a way that people would like me. I sought acceptance in similar ways at school, home, and in sports.

During my freshman year in college, I entered a critical low-time of my life when a relationship ended abruptly and I was confronted with death for the first time when one of my family members passed away within a three week period. At just this time, God, in his sovereignty, sent a staff member with a Christian organization to share the Gospel with me. As he spoke the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, I felt the ever present reality of my sin and my emptiness before God knowing that there was nothing I could do to make my own wrongs right and no one else I could turn to that would fully satisfy. I was amazed that Jesus Christ, the God-man, would humble himself in dying for all the world and offer forgiveness for my sins. Shortly after this, I gave my life to Jesus to be my Savior and Lord. I praise the Triune God for entering human history and graciously transforming my life. I pray that as I grow into the likeness of Christ, I may worship and serve for the glory of God.

How did you meet your wife, Andrea?

Why did you become a pastor, and how did you come to Parkside specifically?
Since becoming a Christian, full-time ministry is something God has continually directed me towards. Although I worked in the medical field and was on track to become a doctor, I subjectively sensed the hand of God guiding me towards pastoral ministry within a local church context to love, care for, and serve His people. Objectively, I have seen the fruit of others being transformed by God through His Word lived and proclaimed in my life and ministry and have received the affirmation of Godly council to pursue pastoral ministry. The passage that God has etched on my heart is 1 Thess. 2:1-8, “…we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel..."

My joining the Parkside church team has only been by the sovereign working of God. In trusting God to direct me into a local church, God connected me to Parkside through random acquaintances, such as Parkside’s previous Middle School Pastor (Bing Nieh, who is now at Trinity), some Trinity professors, and some pastors at our previous church. I was familiar with the wonderful ministry of Parkside from listening to Alistair’s preaching ministry and talking with various pastors, but never would I have imagined I would be given an opportunity to worship and serve here. One day many months ago, I got a call from Scott Kennedy asking if I would be interested in talking with Parkside Church, to which I responded, “Definitely, let’s talk!” And the rest is history.

What are you looking forward to about serving at Parkside?
According to Ephesians 4:11-13, the purpose of the Church is to be the equipping of the saints to do the work of ministry for the ultimate glory of God. I’m looking forward to serving at Parkside church, specifically, because of all the wonderful ways God is using Parkside to bring unbelieving people to trust in Christ and believing people to grow in Christ. I’m most excited about the sufficiency of Christ and the opportunity I will have to preach and teach from the Word—just as C.H. Spurgeon is quoted as saying, “George Whitefield and John Wesley may have preached the gospel better than I, but they could not preach a better gospel.” 

There is nothing more exciting to me than to see the Kingdom of God and the gospel advance at Parkside church and the surrounding community – to see unbelieving people place their trust in Jesus Christ and to see believing people grow as Christians through “the public worship of God, the preaching of the Word, consistent Christian living, Christian education, personal evangelism, and missionary endeavor” is the greatest witness to the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our time. Not only will this be a wonderful privilege for me and my family to worship and serve along-side the Parkside church family, but also for me to be pastorally equipped in ministry for the glory of God.