Every church has an origin story, and ours begins with eight adults, eleven kids, and a borrowed fellowship hall on the east side of Richardson. We had no building, no budget, and no illusions about either. What we had was a conviction: this city needed a church that would love it before it ever attended anything.
So we started by serving. Long before our first official Sunday, we were packing weekend food bags for elementary schools, mowing lawns for single mothers, and showing up at city clean-up days in matching work gloves. People started asking who we were before we ever invited them to anything — and we liked it that way.
Six years later, the food bags became a weekly pantry, the clean-up days became partnerships with three nonprofits, and the borrowed hall became a building we share with the neighborhood. The methods changed. The conviction never did.
If you are new here, know this: you have joined a story that started with grace and continues with service. There is a place in it with your name on it — probably wearing work gloves.
Pastor Nathan ColeLead Pastor, Lanternfield Ministry Partners