Staff
Senior Pastor
Pastor Deano Pulice
"...my passion in ministry is to preach the Word, win the lost, train the believers, and help one another become fully devoted followers of Christ."My name is Deano Pulice and I was born February 11, 1957. I grew up in a small town in southwest Pennsylvania called Fairchance and was the youngest of 6 children. Even though my parents were not churchgoers, a neighbor invited me when I was seven years old to attend the Free Methodist Sunday School with his son and took me almost every Sunday during my childhood.
It was in 1978, while attending a summer camp, the evangelist spoke of God’s love and how God loved me just the way I was and stretched out His arms to show me the full extent of His love. That evening I gave my life to Christ and have been a believer ever since.
On August 15, 1981 I married my wife Darlene. She grew up in Uniontown, Pa and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in Dental Hygiene. Since that time God has blessed us with 4 beautiful children: Deanna (married to Chris Abram), Christopher, Janelle, and Bethany.
I graduated from Roberts Wesleyan College in 1986 with a major in Music and a minor in Biblical Studies. During that time, I received a call to become a minister of Jesus Christ. Over the years I have served in a variety of ways: a youth pastor for two years and an associate pastor for five years at the Brockport Free Methodist Church, a church planter in Bridgeport, WV for three years, a senior pastor in Monaca, PA for eleven years, and an interim pastor in New Castle, PA for two and a half years. In June of 1991, I was ordained as an elder in the Free Methodist Church.
The Lord has blessed me with a love to sing and play the piano, but my passion in ministry is to preach the Word, win the lost, train the believers, and help one another become fully devoted followers of Christ.
Associate Pastor
Pastor Baiba Peelle
I am the Associate Pastor here at Park Ridge and my primary areas of responsibility are pastoral care and outreach. I love talking to people about their faith journey. I love exploring the questions and struggles as well as the joys as we all seek to know God more deeply, love him more fully, and follow him more wholeheartedly.
My own faith journey has not been a direct path. I had a very strong faith and love for God as a child, but I walked away from the church (and from God, or so I thought) in my early teens. God remained faithful and loving, and in my late 30's I returned to him and to the church. (Ask me sometime about this remarkable period in my life.) I have been part of the Lutheran and Presbyterian churches during my Christian walk. In 2000, during a season of spiritual challenge and much soul-searching, my husband David and I discovered (and soon thereafter joined) the Free Methodist Church. I sensed a call to the ordained ministry about a year later, and felt it affirmed during my period of serving my church as a Local Ministerial Candidate. In 2003, I entered Northeastern Seminary, and earned an Masters of Divinity degree there. I was ordained as an elder in the spring of 2008, which was for me "far more than I could ask for or imagine."
I have served at several churches in the Rochester area in various capacities, including Coordinator of Children's Ministries, Pastoral Intern, and interim solo pastor. It is truly a great joy and privilege to be able to serve God and his people.
Most mornings I try to spend a significant period of time in reading the Bible and in prayer and meditation. I sit in a big comfortable chair in our living room, facing the front window, and enjoy God's beauty in his creation as I read and pray. I keep a journal nearby so that I can record insights, nudges, and questions that come to me.
I try also to read regularly in books by great Christians of today and of the past. And I love to take prayer walks, just God and me talking about whatever comes up.
I also treasure my times with both my faith sharing group and my accountability group, where I can be honest, open, and aware of God's work in me and in others.
I have been married since 1976 to David, my best and closest friend and steadfast companion in the journey. David serves at New Hope Free Methodist Church as Assistant Pastor. Our awesome son Jonathan and his awesome wife Jill currently live in Cambridge, England. We look forward to their return to the States in the next year or so (it can't be soon enough for us!).
Children's Ministries Director
Mary "Michelle" Trost
Michelle and her husband, Matthew, enjoy raising their two boys, biking on the canal and spending time with friends in Brockport, NY. Isaac (4) and Connor (2) keep their parents busy, teaching them the importance of cars, rocks, dirt and sand. Matt and Michelle are both graduates of Roberts Wesleyan College and SUNY Brockport. Until recently, Michelle worked as a music teacher in the Rochester City School District where she began teaching in 1997. During that time she has taught each grade from K-12 at some point, spending the last 7 years at Wilson Magnet High School, grades 9-12. She has directed music for several Vacation Bible Schools and at Lighthouse Christian Camp, as well as assisting with Children's Church and Children's Christmas programs. She brings years of experience in working with children as well as a passion and desire to reach them for Jesus and teach them how to become a child of the King. She also has a desire to teach, resource, and encourage those who have been a vital part of our church's ongoing ministries to children as well as identify prospective workers. When Michelle was asked to share a small bit of her heart, here is what she said:
"I believe we as adults will learn much more about joy and sorrow, patience and compassion from children than they will learn from the 'lessons' we teach them. What will stick with them is the lives we model and the relationships we build with them while we are teaching. I look forward to building relationships with the children and people of Park Ridge Free Methodist Church and together sharing the joy of Jesus with those children who have yet to hear."