Carl Thomas Gladstone comes to Birmingham First as an ordained Deacon specializing in worship development, youth, and music ministry. Carl grew up in the diverse community of Metropolitan United Methodist Church in Detroit where he saw the riches of God's global people gathered together. As a student at Albion College, he and others felt called to start a midweek “Chapel” service of contemporary praise and worship that is still going strong 7 years later. During his summers as a mission intern through various UMC organizations Carl served in urban settings in Detroit, Dallas, and Oklahoma City as a counselor for children's programs in impoverished churches. These experiences ingrained in Carl a heart for urban and young adult ministries as well as ministries with the poor. His recent time at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary helped prepare Carl for a ministry of connecting the Good News of Jesus Christ with the lives of God's children everywhere through “original acoustic music on the prophetic edge” and through the interconnected practices of worship, prayer, mission, and mutual accountability.

Carl is committed to nurturing the community of young, faith-filled, Holy Spirit-led Christians in and around First UMC through creative teaching and formation, creative writing, musical performance, and the continuation and development of experiential worship. As a Deacon charged to ministries of “Word and Service,” he will go forth from the church at regular times throughout the year to share his faith-based original music with audiences through concert tours and by recording/producing CDs.

“I pray,” says Carl, “that God will grant us vision together to see the new, artistic, and world changing ways in which the message of the Gospel can be shared and explored together as artist and audience, pastor and people, church and world.”