At the very end of the year 2000 my family and I moved from Colorado to Northeast Texas. We lived in a small town outside Longview for just over 2 years while we adopted 3 children from Russia and worked with a church to help them start a youth ministry. It was obvious within our first couple of months at this small town church that this was not the place we needed to be so we began searching for a new church.
We identified that one of the primary criteria for the church we were seeking was a willingness to be led by God. You might think this willingness to be led by God would be a given at every church but my experience has shown me that all people and even church leaderships are fallen and at best struggle to allow God to be in charge.
Over the course of 18 months we interviewed with around 45 churches scattered around Texas. A common question I had for the leadership had to do with what role God had in their decision making process. I could write a book about the range of responses this question received including one minister that told me God doesn't really have anything to do with our day to day decision making process.
The response to this question is ultimately what caught my attention at Sugar Grove. The answer I received from person after person at Sugar Grove described a passion and a journey at understanding how to hear God's voice and apply that into the direction of the church. The answers I received were not marked with confidence saying 'we've got this all figured out' but instead with humility recognizing it is about God, not about us.
In my nine and one half years at Sugar Grove I have marveled time and again at how the leadership has heard God's voice and responded in faith. Faith responses are characterized by a journey, not by a finished product. Sugar Grove is a church on a journey... a journey of learning how to listen to and follow God.
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