Carrie Witt
Music Worship Leader
How did you become a Christian?
I was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. I grew up attending First United Methodist Church in Mount Vernon where I began singing in the children’s choir. There began my connection of worship and my relationship with God. In my teenage years, I developed a stronger, more intimate relationship with Christ and was baptized by submersion when I was 16. Throughout my youth, college, and into my adulthood, music and church were part of my core. After college, I no longer lead worship-it became just something between God and I.
How did you come to Hope Church? What do you enjoy best about Hope Church?
Patrick and I met in 2018 at Southbrook Christian Church, it’s a great story that we can share another time but it began with him hearing me worship during a service. Patrick was playing bass at multiple churches when we first began dating, so I would travel with him to different churches, one of which was Hope. Once a month, we would come to Hope, and the community was warm, kind, friendly and welcoming. For months, Patrick and I attended and without fail, during the message of each service, we would feel the Holy Spirit moving so strongly that one of us (often both of us) were brought to tears. We weren’t looking for a new church home. We both were regularly attending and serving at Southbrook. However, we could not deny the pull we felt to Hope Church. We decided to have the kids come with us and encouraged them to attend Sunday School while Patrick was in rehearsal before service. Bethany was excited and Homer went begrudgingly. But after Sunday School, they both could not hide their joy and excitement, both asking to return the following week. Patrick and I began praying as we could not deny God’s pull drawing us to Hope. The community made us all feel at home and it was clear to us that God wanted us to call Hope Church, home.
How do you envision God using the worship ministry to intentionally engage younger people as well as people from multi-ethnic backgrounds?
My prayer for Hope is that we continue to build and develop a multi-generational worship team with individuals from diverse and multi-ethnic backgrounds. We will do this through reaching out to our community, inviting others to join our Hope family so we can share all of our gifts and talents as we strive to further God’s Kingdom. We will continue to explore worship in fresh ways, stretching ourselves to experience God in new and exciting ways. We want to create a community that reflects, embraces and celebrates how God has uniquely crafted each one us to further His Kingdom through our diversity and our love.
What do you enjoy most about leading worship?
I have a strong passion for worship. It is deeply ingrained into the way God created me. There is connection, healing, peace, joy, freedom, rejuvenation, restoration and power that is available to all of us in our worship. Worship is our offering. God calls us to open our hearts, minds and pour out our worship from the depths of our soul. It is important to me that worship is authentic and genuine. When I lead worship, it is my deepest joy to be able to be used by God as His instrument, a vessel to allow the Holy Spirit to move and breathe through me. Worship is all about God, not about us. It is vital that as I lead worship, and lead teams to lead worship, that we are correctly positioned. It involves using our God given talents and gifts, but it requires us to clear our hearts and minds, to ask God to search us and for us to actively relinquish anything that could get in the way of our worship and then invite the Holy Spirit to fill us and move freely through us. We want to help create a space where each individual in our community can intimately experience God. We pray that each of you will continue to open your hearts and minds, to be free to stretch yourselves to experience and connect to our Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in new ways.
Our family loves our Hope Church Family, and we are excited to continue to be a part of how God is moving and working at and through Hope Church.
