Bobby Chandler

I'm the Director of Communications at Sugar Creek Baptist Church. I've been married for 12 years and have 2 great little boys.

I went to seminary in 2000 (I was a young 28 at the time) thinking God was calling me to preach. I believe He did call me to preach, but that was for training me up in another area. More about that later.

While at seminary, I served as an interim pastor at First Baptist Thibodeaux, Louisiana. It was a great place for me to learn about ministry first hand. I performed my first wedding, funeral, baptism, and Lord's supper while there. The church was made up of mostly older people and they were some of the sweetest and most patient people I've known.

After serving there for about a year, God sent me to plant a church. Wow! This is were God prepared me for a future ministry outside of the pulpit. It was here I learned about relevance, marketing, design, and all around creativity in the church.

While all of that experience was great, I was absolutely miserable doing what I was doing. The plant was turning into a miserable failure. I had to ask a family to leave our group...long story. We didn't have the funds to keep the plant going. Our mother church was very manipulative and pastored by a very ungodly man.

I was so stressed out...to the point of being sick, and sinking into depression.

I knew it was time to call it quits with the church plant, so we shut it down. I felt like a failure. But it was here that I heard God's real calling in my life.

My experience in the plant prepared me for a future in the ministry of communications. I learned that in order to reach the culture outside of the church. I learned that as the church, we needed to start thinking like lost people. We needed to know what they were watching, listening to, reading, where they were going.

We needed to learn how to reach those without hope, seeking fulfillment and purpose.

So, that brings me to post seminary. Directly after school I went to work for a church in the DFW area. I was hired as a graphic artist, but eventually a new position was created for me. I became the Director of Creative Arts. But still, not the calling God had for me.

So, I left there and began doing freelance full time until I could hear from God what my next move was. I spent a short stint at another church as a graphic artist. That was a mistake. Horrible mistake.

I bided my time doing more freelance work until eventually I took a job as an art director at an ad agency in Houston. That was in October 2007.

At this point I wondered if I would ever even work at a church again. I started questioning what I thought was God's call in my life.

Then I got a call in May 2008 that changed my thinking and renewed my hope. It was from Dave Grumme at Sugar Creek Baptist Church. He asked if I was interested in a vacant Director of Communications position. At first I didn't know. I was pretty happy where I was - for the first time in a long time

But I met with Dave, and my feelings and passion and excitement all came back. I knew this would be the place that I would fulfill the calling God had for me.

So that brings me to today. I was hired in June of 2008 to be the Director of Communications. My hope is that I bring God glory. That I make Him look good to a world that sees a lot of ugly stuff.