As children gather to hear stories and play with church volunteers, Pastor Ronnie Norman of First Colony Church of Christ Sugar Land, talks with a group of men and women, getting to know them and inquiring about how the church can meet their needs. This ministry, which focuses on the Four Corners community in Fort Bend County, is just one of the ways Pastor Norman leads his church to make a difference in the world.
He takes the Lord seriously when he says in Matthew 28:19, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The pastor encourages all of his nearly 2000 parishioners to be “on mission” in their daily lives, and enlists their help to provide prayer, donations and man power to bring hope to those who are less fortunate in the community and abroad.
“We have a strong missions presence in Honduras, Haiti and Uganda,” he said. “We have started over 20 churches in Uganda and we go on many short-term mission trips annually, both foreign and domestic.
The church also spends much of their time and effort assisting and ministering those living in the under-resourced area of Four Corners in Fort Bend.
“We do tutoring and community clean-ups there as well as providing school supplies for students and gift cards for teachers in an elementary school.”
Norman founded First Colony Church of Christ in 1985, and has been the pastor ever since. At that time, the pastor and a few core members wrote out a mission statement that said the church would “exist to honor God and lead people into a growing relationship with Him.”
“I love our mission and I’m as committed to it now as I was 30 years ago when we started,” he said.
The church also has a set of objectives that help guide not only the pastor, but those in leadership and those who attend regularly.
“We aim to gather in larger groups for praise and in smaller groups to connect. We aim to grow as lifelong, enthusiastic disciples of Jesus Christ through bible knowledge, prayer and generosity,” he said. “We also aim to go, making a difference for Jesus Christ at home, in the church, in our community and beyond.”
Norman has built his church from the ground up, and has relied heavily on his Christian upbringing in Columbia, TN and his experiences ministering to people in Lakeland, FL area from 1981 to 1985.
“I love my church family at the First Colony Church of Christ and would attend there even if I were not on staff,” he said.
Norman and the rest of his church are working to add to the family with the addition of three multi-site campuses in the next 36 months.
“We just launched our first multi-site campus in Richmond on September 13 and that is going beautifully,” Norman said.
When the pastor isn’t launching new church sites or helping to administer school supplies to children in under-served areas of the community, he enjoys spending time with his wife Martha of 35 years, their two children and five grandchildren.
“One of our treasured blessings is that our children and grandchildren live nearby and are active players in our church family,” he said. “I’m a blessed guy.”
If he’s not preaching a sermon at the First Colony campus at 2140 First Colony Boulevard, Sugar Land, TX, he is riding through town on his motorcycle or playing what he calls “woeful golf.”