Our Story

In 1996, Pastor Paul Clines answered God's call to start a new United Methodist Church in the New Territory area of Sugar Land, TX.  It started in his living room with just a few families and just kept growing from there.  Parkway has worshiped in a school cafeteria, a gymnasium and its own worship center.  The truth is that Parkway has never been about the place.  It's always been about the people - an imperfect people trying follow an amazing God thru Jesus Christ.

That's as true today as it always has been.


Pastors and people have come and gone, but God is still weaving an incredible story through Parkway. We're not so big that you won't be able to get to know anyone, but we're big enough to have vibrant ministries for children, youth and adults.


We invite you to come find your place in God's story here at Parkway.   

Our mission

At Parkway, we believe every church exists to glorify God and make disciples of Jesus Christ.  We also believe that every church has its own unique people, place and passion. In other words, God accomplishes His mission differently in every church.  At Parkway, our mission is:  


Demonstrating God's Grace to inspire a hope-filled journey with Jesus.


We  want to live our lives in such a way that others will see God's Grace and be inspired to find the hope that comes from following Jesus.  We try to align everything we do around this single principle.

our strategies

When you go to a new church, you may look at all of the events that they are doing and ask yourself, "Which ones should I prioritize if I want to grow closer to Jesus?"  With so many to choose from, which ones offer the best way to get connected to God and others?  

Here at Parkway, we have an answer.


We encourage everyone who comes here to Gather, Grow, Go and Glow.  These are what we call our four strategies for discipling people who come here to Parkway.  In other words, if you want to grow deeper in your relationship with God, prioritize the things below:

  • Gather (for worship)

    We believe that human beings were made to be in intimate connection with God and the all-encompassing way we do that is through worship.  We also believe that something incredible happens over time when we bring individual lives of worship together to become one big 'worship'.  So Gathering for worship is one of our primary strategies to move people closer to Christ.  In other words, we hope you'll come and worship with other believers here at Parkway on a regular basis! 

  • grow (in smaller groups)

    At Parkway, one of the places we feel people grow the most quickly in their relationship with God and with others, is in a Grow Group.  Grow Groups are a great way to grow your friendships, your knowledge of Scripture and your impact on the world. They typically contain about 8-12 people and meet on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.  They meet on many different nights of the week and they meet wherever is most convenient for them - in homes or at the church.  If you want to find out more, you can email, info@parkwayumc.org.  We hope every single person at Parkway will find a Grow Group that takes them deeper!

  • Go (in service)

    The third thing we hope everyone will do at Parkway is to find a place to serve both inside and outside the church. Serving with our time, talent and treasure are a huge part of following Jesus.  Whether it's serving the homeless, being a greeter, doing flood repairs, or volunteering for our any of our age-level ministries - each one of us can do something both inside and outside the church to serve Christ.  If you're looking for a simple way to get involved, email info@parkwayumc.org.

  • glow (in retreat)

    In Exodus 34, Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments for the 2nd time.  He stays there for 40 days and nights and when he comes down, his face is glowing because he has been with God.  We think that happens in some way every time we get away and 'retreat' with God.  That's why, once per year, we hope everyone will get away for a retreat.  It can be our Women's Retreat, Men's Retreat, Student retreats or Mission trips - but we hope you'll do it once per year.  You'll be glad you did and you'll be 'glowing' too. 

What we believe

A beautiful story

We believe that beliefs are better understood in conversation than as a list of bullet points on a web-site. We also realize, however, that web-sites are available to people who may never be able to meet members of our community. So we decided to tackle this through a rather long, but important story of what we believe and how we have come to believe it. We hope this tells the story in a way that makes sense to the reader. These are ancient concepts, but what you find below is an attempt to put them in modern terms while staying true to the historic Christian Faith. So take a deep breath and read on.

The Bible

We believe the Bible tells us the story of God and the history of His pursuit of us. It is inspired poetry, song, story, history, letter-writing and even prophecy. It is fully true and is our final authority for living on all the matters it speaks to, but should be interpreted carefully and accurately. Most of the things we know about God and ourselves, we know from this authoritative book. We study this book continually because the moment we think we know it all, is the moment when our living faith has died. 

Who is God?

The Bible tells us that there is only one God, but that there is also a three-ness to God. 

The way ancient and modern Christians have put words to our understanding of God is that we worship one God who exists eternally in three persons . . . Father, Son and Holy Spirit.


The scriptures are clear that God created everything that is and ever will be. God has continually been in conversation with His people trying to draw them closer to Himself. The history of our faith (from the Ancient Hebrews all the way up to today) shows us that our relationship with God has been, and continues to be, a cycle of drawing near to God and then walking away from God. The people of Israel would be faithful for a time, then worship foreign gods, neglect the poor, and abuse the foreigner. This was their sin as individuals and as a people. Unfortunately, we fall into this same cycle of drawing close and walking away from God today.

Who am I?


We all know (and Romans 3:23 reminds us if we ever forget) that we are broken and flawed. 

We have chosen to be our own gods instead of letting God be God in our lives. This fundamental problem we have is called 'sin.' 

Sin means our lives are 'off the mark' and that we fall short of God's standard. That's the bad news. 


The good news is that God had a specific plan to redeem His creation. 

The defining moment of that plan was the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here's basically what happened:

God knew we could never be pure or perfect enough to "earn" our way into an eternal relationship with Him, so

He came down to find us instead. God left heaven and came to earth in the form of a little baby that we call Jesus. Jesus was "God in the flesh" or "God with us" and he came to show us how to die to ourselves and live for something larger (His work in the world) so that we could have abundant life that can start today and go on forever.


How does this work?

We can have that life by trusting Jesus' perfect life and death on the cross to pay for our sin. Like a small child who tries to pay the tab at a restaurant for his family with a few coins, we don't have enough purity or righteousness in our lives to pay our own debt to God. In God's mercy, He allows us to receive that payment by trusting in Christ's sacrifice for us. He transfers His funds into our account so to speak.

That starts a new journey for us.


Is God still working?

Even today, God is not done with us yet. We believe that God has not abandoned His creation and His chosen people. He has continued and still continues to work to reclaim His creation. The ongoing work of God in the world is done through God's Spirit which encourages, comforts, teaches and convicts us. In other words, God still works through the Holy Spirit today to connect and reconnect people to Him.


We see in the scriptures the affirmation that all of life is sacred. This means that every moment of our lives can be lived as an act of worship (Romans 12:1). It means that every part of our lives . . . our fears, hopes, addictions, struggles, joys . . . our work, our play, our friendships, our families . . . they are all either redeemed or in need of redemption. They are either under God's control or under our own. There is nothing that is outside the realm of God so God wants to redeem all of our lives - the physical, the spiritual, the emotional - all of it. And the best part is that our fullest life is found when we follow the way of Jesus and put our lives under His lordship.