Finding Our Faith Family
Several years ago, we were looking for a church where we felt comfortable, included, and welcomed through invitation to join in community. Callie (our oldest daughter) was 6 months old at the time, so we were also looking for a nursery for her to attend during the day while we worked full time. The Preschool was only 3 miles from the school I taught at, so it was very convenient to drop her off in the mornings on my way to work and scoop her up in the afternoon on my way home to Frisco. A nursery where Callie was loved and well cared for, and a church we could call home, became the perfect combination and exactly what we were looking for, but didn’t know it at the time.
Our first memory of feeling like our church was OUR church was when Sandra Sheffield stopped us one Sunday after service, hugged us both, and genuinely beamed with every ounce of her being at Callie and seemed so happy to see us there. Sandra greeted Callie and Cameron every early weekday morning of their nursery and Pre-K days, for nearly 8 years, and attending church with her on Sundays, as well, impacted our lives.
We appreciate that the ministry of our church is the mission and vision of our church. It is clear and consistently embedded in everything we do as a community of faith. Ask any member and they will know, and be able to articulate, that we are all blessed to be a blessing and serve from the heart with joyful generosity. The ministry of PMLC is our heartbeat as a church community, and we all hold the promise of showing up to it with conviction.
We both learned the value of generosity through our upbringing in our respective church communities. Chris first learned about service while helping at the local food pantry in Yukon, Oklahoma, which was founded by his grandmother. Meanwhile, as a youth leader in my Catholic church, I (Christina) experienced firsthand what generosity truly means by serving impoverished communities and those with disabilities in nearby congregations.
We believe in our church’s mission and that we are blessed to be a blessing. We also know that PMLC follows through, and the things we say we are going to do to help others both in our local community and abroad actually get done. It’s so exciting and encouraging to see what we have, and can, accomplish as people of God working together!
Our greatest hope for PMLC is that our mission stays clear and true and that every year we look to do more than the year before, while at the same time opening the doors of our church wider and wider. We are doing good things over here, and we want you to be a part of it.
Christina and Chris Long