After retiring from John Deere in May, Jason Hug decided to go in a different venture.

He had to travel almost 300 miles south to find it.

Hug became campus pastor of the new Have Bible Will Travel church at 404 W. Second Street in Montgomery City, the former location of First Baptist Church, which was closed for more than a year.

“We have a goal to reach anybody and everybody,” Hug said. “We’re kind of misfits. A lot of us ride motorcycles. We don’t care what your background is. I don’t care if you’re in prison. God changes people. In my mind, too many churches have this attitude, ‘We’re better than the rest of the world.’ They are not better than anybody else. We want to reach out to people that most churches want to give up on.”

Hug and his wife, Lorie, lived in the Waterloo, Iowa area before they decided to move to Montgomery County.

“We wanted to start a church up there (in Iowa),” Hug said. “Every opportunity, the door got closed. When I retired from John Deere, I decided to move south. Our church planner up there was our church planner down here.”

The Have Bible Will Travel church has services at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays and 10 a.m. on Sundays. Hug preaches on Sundays and Pat Rankin is the pastor for the Wednesday services. The church held a grand opening on Aug. 7 and Aug. 11 with services, games, bounce houses and barbecue.

The church has been open since June. Jason Hug said the church’s mission is to spread love of God to Montgomery County residents.

“We’re basically a Bible-centered church that focuses on loving everybody,” he said. “We don’t believe that we’re in competition with anybody in church. As far as I’m concerned, I want to help every church because I’m a firm believer that people need to be in God’s word.”

The Have Bible Will Travel church is based in St. Louis. It has three other locations – Florissant, Moscow Mills and St. Louis.

“They’re a super, super great support system,” Hug said. “They are different from any church you have ever seen. Like they say, ‘We’re not your mama’s church.’ We play some pretty fast-tempo music. A lot of it is more country type music, which isn’t my favorite, but I’m OK with it. It’s upbeat. We celebrate God.”

Hug said he enjoys the hospitality he and his wife have been getting from the Montgomery City residents after two months.

“I absolutely love this town,” said Hug, who works at Brandkamp Cabinets. “Everybody is so friendly. Everybody is so helpful. I was having problems with my bike and I needed to jump start it because my battery died. People at Carquest said, ‘Just take our jumpstart back and start it.’ You’re not going to get that in the city. I went to start it and I brought the jump start back to them.”

Hug has lived in a small town for most of his life. He grew up in Ohio before later moving to Iowa.

“I went to school to be a Catholic priest,” Hug said. “I ask too many questions. They told me if I don’t believe everything they told me, then I’m not Catholic. I said, ‘Oh, I guess I’m not Catholic, but I can get married now.’ So I met Lorie and we’ve been married for 36 years with two kids. We just felt God was calling us to come down here and here we are.”