Staff Highlight: Arron Mecwan

Tell us some of your history—Where are you from, how did you grow up?

For the first 22 years of my life, I lived in India and grew up in a Catholic family. My parents, my grandparents on both mom and dad's side, they were all Catholics. And as far as I remember, our family spirituality was like a checklist—going on Sundays, attending church events, attending on the big holidays, meetings on Wednesday nights—but not true Christians. Until one day the Lord touched my dad, and all his anger issues, stress, and the negativity he brought on our family went away. From that day, salvation had literally come to my house. Mom and Dad got saved, started speaking in tongues, and then their love for each other grew. And that helped me and my sister to have a peaceful relationship with our parents. It paved the way for us to draw near to God.

When I was in my 10th grade I was in a charismatic prayer meeting, and at the time I was struggling with lust, and all that junk as a teenager. In that meeting there were some healings that took place and people were filled with the Spirit. As a teenager I thought “I'm way too unholy for this meeting” and so I went and sat outside of the house by myself. My family friend, a pastor who was 10-15 years older than me, came up to me and started telling me all my sins that I was involving myself in. The sins that he listed were not just general for a teenage boy, they were really specific to me and my experience. I was shocked and asked him, “How do you know?” and he replied, “The Lord just showed me some of these things. And you have two options: One, you can find satisfaction, joy, freedom, and happiness in a life with Jesus. Or two, you can go back to the way you’ve been living and try to find satisfaction—but you won’t find it there. I won’t guilt trip you into making a decision, it is up to you.” After thinking about my decision I could make, I decided to follow Jesus and ever since that day I've been following Jesus.

What brought you from India to the United States, and even to GCC?

I had not personally thought about coming here to the U.S. But the Lord put the desire in my heart to come to the States to study for a Master's in civil engineering. I ended up choosing UTA and while I was on the UTA website, I noticed an event called the “UTA Big Howdy.” On that page, they had offered free airport pickup rides to international students, and I wanted that!

International students spending time with the GCC church members who had picked them up from the airport or taken them on the ‘Big Howdy Tour’ that Grace Community Church hosts every year on Labor Day. (Photo from August 2018)

On the page there were three places you could email about getting a free ride from the airport, the Baptist Student Ministry (BSM), the Lutheran Center, and the Cornerstone (Grace Community Church’s college ministry). I emailed a few of them and ended up getting in contact with Steve Headland. And instead of finding someone else to get me, he himself emailed me saying, “I would love to come pick you up.” He introduced himself to me over the email, and asked me about my name. He said “Your name is a Christian name. Are you a believer?” And when I told him I was a Catholic and that I loved Jesus, he asked me if I had found housing for my time during my studies. I replied to him saying that I didn’t have housing yet and he said, “Well, I have a discipleship housing program. Would you be interested in participating in that?” I was the only person in the discipleship house program who was accepted without having ever met Steve in person!

And ever since May 28, of 2015 (which was my day of arrival in the U.S.) I have been attending Grace Community Church, because on my first afternoon in the U.S. I went to the Cornerstone’s Friday afternoon Awakening prayer set! I remember in that prayer set, I encountered the presence of God like I had never before. I was in tears, and I was thinking about how good this place really was.

And then that Sunday, I attended Grace’s church service, and I had never attended service with a live band. It was the very first time I was ever attending a live worship band!

Did you finish your Master’s program?

I studied for my Master’s in civil engineering at UTA for two semesters. During that time, I was volunteering at Cornerstone on the worship team playing on Joey’s team, and it was really powerful. But any time I would be leading worship, I would be thinking about finishing my assignment that was due tomorrow. And so I was always feeling the stress of that. I felt the pull between my Master’s studies and worshipping Jesus with my whole heart, because I just could not find the right balance.

Arron leading the students at the Cornerstone (GCC’s college ministry, now called ‘1824’) on a worship night with UTA students and other 18 - 24 year olds.

Because of that, at the end of my second semester, I came to a crossroads where I made the decision to leave the country and go back home since I was not going to continue at UTA. I was talking to Steve, saying thank you and goodbye to him. And God put on his heart to ask me if I had heard of CFNI. I was confused and asked if that was a gym or something like that, but he explained that CFNI is a Bible school in DFW and that he was seeing that I was more passionate about ministry than about civil engineering. He advised me to ask my parents about the idea, since they were going to be my financial aid, to see if they would agree to this.

They agreed with this idea, and I trusted that the Lord was the one leading my parents, my passions, and my pastor and mentor, Steve. I ended up attending CFNI and graduated in 2018 with a Bachelors of Practical Theology with a focus in Worship and Pastoral Ministry.

What did you think you would do with your degree?

Two of the teachers at CFNI (both were close pastoral leaders in my life) have their own churches, and I wanted to go work at one of their churches. But the Lord said no. He said to me, “I'm going to give you a job at Grace.” This was not the audible voice of God, but it was more of a knowing in my heart about what the Holy Spirit was trying to communicate.

And a really cool thing that happened a month or two before my graduation in 2018. During one of our final student chapels at CFNI I got this vision from the Lord where I was seeing a text banner pop up on my phone, and it was a text from Pastor Gary. In this vision he had sent me a short message saying “Hey, can we meet tomorrow at noon in my office?” And then in my vision, Gary said you're going to work at Grace. I said to myself, “Okay Lord, maybe that's just me thinking, only you know.”

Two weeks before graduation, I was trying to finalize which church I would be doing and OPT (Optional Practical Training), which would allow me to practice and use the skills I had just learned. And at that two week mark, Pastor Gary texted me that very message that I had seen before. I just knew what it was about. When I saw that text, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna get the job.”

In the conversation that followed, Pastor Gary asked the very question I was wondering about, “Would you like to work with us?”

What did you start off doing here at GCC?

Pastor Gary offered me a job and asked if I would like to be working part time as a worship coordinator at Grace. I did that for a year, and then asked the team about whether there was room for a full-time position, because my student visa was going to expire and I would have to return to India. A full-time position and a “sponsorship” from GCC is what I would need in order to stay in the U.S.

After they talked about it and worked out the details, I was offered the role of GHOP Director, which took me from part-time to full-time. I am currently on my Religious worker visa and I am planning on applying for a Green card in the future, which will help me continue serving Jesus and His people at Grace.

Have your roles here felt like a good fit?

Yes! When I was a teenager in India, the pastor of our prayer group appointed me to be one of two intercessors for our group. We would receive everyone’s prayer requests and it was our role to intercede for people outside of that group. And so when I received the role of the Grace House of Prayer Director, I realized God was preparing me for this role even back there.

The sound booth team preparing for Sunday morning service. Arron is one of the main Directors and helps teach other Sunday Morning Directors how to ensure the service flows as planned by guiding the sound, livestream, screen/slides, and camera volunteers.

When I first came to the knowledge of Jesus in my 10th grade, I started listening to English worship songs. At that time, Chris Tomlin had released his “Arriving” album, which was one of his biggest albums in 2006—It had all the big hits such as “Indescribable,” “Holy is the Lord,” “Your Grace is Enough,” “How great is our God.” I could play guitar and wanted to learn how to play and sing like that to worship the Lord. I had somewhat dreamed about getting to lead worship in this way, and now I get to do it all the time.

Any final thoughts or reflections?

As I’m transitioning out of GHOP, one of the biggest things that the Lord has put on my heart is to look for the fruit. You know in John 15 how if you're connected to the vine, you must bear fruit, and you will bear fruit. The Lord has shown me fruit in so many areas of my life—from my parents receiving the Lord and our family going from broken to healed, to receiving freedom myself, to participating in ministry as a volunteer and seeing fruit, and now reflecting on the fruit that has come from my time as GHOP Director. He is enabling me to desire for more fruit in the ministry that I’m a part of, no matter what it is. I want God to stir people's hearts, for His glory to be beheld, for people to know His character, His nature, and then ultimately I want to see people surrendering their lives to Him.

But also another scripture that he brought to my mind is Mark 16:17-18 which says,

“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

The signs and wonders follow believers. I'm glad that it doesn't say that signs and wonders just follow pastors and teachers, and preachers, and people who are in full-time ministries. And I think that's going to become a norm in the church as a whole in the world. But I want to see that more at Grace Community Church.