Leadership Team | Sugar Grove

My Story

I was born and raised in the small town of Bluffton, IN.  I came from a loving family who supported and encouraged me through my school activities and sports.  I graduated high school with an interest in Mechanical Engineering, so I pursued and earned my Bachelor’s Degree from Purdue University in December 1997.  I was hired immediately after college by Navistar, where I have now worked for 17 years.  

While I was in college I met my future wife Darnell through a mutual friend, and we were married shortly after she graduated.  At that point in our lives I had only attended church a few times with friends in college, and Darnell’s family only occasionally attended a Catholic Church a limited amount of her childhood.  Neither of us had ever heard the Gospel, and we were living our lives focused on ourselves.  

After we had our first baby, we started feeling a pull away from our current lifestyle.  At that time we had also visited a new church with Darnell’s parents that had a very different style of worship and preaching than we had ever heard.  We decided we should try to find a church near our home to go to.  I rationalized at that time that I wanted my children to learn about “religion.”  I didn’t even know what that meant at the time.  

We visited several churches and found one that we were interested in, Brookside Community Church in Fort Wayne, IN.  We began hearing the word of God preached. For the first time we bought our own bibles and began reading them.  In 2004, I finally realized that I needed God’s saving Grace, and I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.  Darnell had a very similar experience around the same time, so we were both baptized together soon after.

We began to serve in our children’s rooms, we attended adult bible fellowship classon Sunday mornings, and we joined a small group.  We were soaking up biblical truth, enjoying this new church community in our lives and searching out what it means to be a part of the body of Christ.  God blessed us with 3 more children and much spiritual growth in our time in Fort Wayne.

In 2011, Navistar decided to move its engineering operations to a new headquarters in Lisle, IL.  We were reluctant to move at first, but felt God calling us here.  We accepted the transfer and moved to Yorkville, IL.  We quickly put down roots at Village Bible Church upon our move and embraced our new church family.  God called us into another big adventure in 2013 as we started the process of adoption.  We were excited to welcome our fifth child home from China in November 2014.  

In my time at Village Bible Church I have been involved in the children’s ministry, men’s ministry, Awana, and small group leadership.  In January 2014 God called me into my present position as Shepherding Elder.  

My Hope for Village

My hope is that our body of believers will be changed by the love defined in 1 John 3:16-18.  Out of love for us, Jesus laid down his life for us, so we should be loving others not just in words, but in deeds and in truth.  This love should be evident as we also live out James 1:22-25, be doers of the word, and not hearers only.