A Dollar In The Plate: Faith Fellowship

By the end of the service I attended at Faith Fellowship, I was wondering if my main recommendation for any visitors would be to bring a bottle of water to stay hydrated.

Most of the church services I’ve attended have fallen somewhere between one and two hours in length. At two hours and 40 minutes long, the one at Faith Fellowship was the longest I’ve attended as part of this series (just edging out Congregation Beth El, which ran for two and a half hours).

But the congregation at Faith Fellowship seems more than happy to spend a long Sunday morning in the sanctuary. Parishioners routinely referred to each other as family, with one member referring to a pastor at the church as her “spiritual mother.”

The church is a large brick building on Huntington Street, and a billboard reading “Jesus is Lord” rises from one side to be visible to vehicles traveling along I-95 and its sprawl of ramps. Inside, a Christian bookstore is located off to one side while in the sanctuary rows of chairs lead up to a clear podium set between two armchairs. International flags hung from poles lining the sanctuary wall.

The church is led by husband and wife pastors Peter and Jean Knapp. The Mother’s Day service gave particular recognition to Jean, with Peter and some members of the congregation thanking her and other mothers in the congregation. Jean in turn asked which members of the congregation were experiencing problems in their lives and asked other attendees to comfort them.

“I see the hand of God, and He thinks so much better than what you and I project,” she said.

The service included numerous interjections of praise, including one particularly passionate member whose exhortations almost seemed to constitute sermons of his own. Peter spoke of the comfort the church provides for its members.

“We’re just so thankful in this economy that God is our source,” he said.

The service I attended brought in a guest speaker, Nick “The Greek” Pirovolos of Inside Out Ministries and author of the book Too Mean to Die. Pirovolos, a former prisoner, spoke of his work as a motivational speaker and missionary for correctional institutions. He said he works to impart the message that one’s choices are what defines them, saying a classmate of his from the same neighborhood won gold medals in the Olympics while he was behind bars.

“They want to know something tangible, something real, and if it worked for me so many years ago it will work for them,” he said of his work with prisoners.

Pirovolos also warned of getting led astray by factors such as tranquility or trivial issues. He said people should also question tradition and whether to do something simply because it’s always been done before.

“All tradition’s not bad, but I want to find out why we’re doing it,” he said.

Faith Fellowship is located at 327 Huntington Street. Sunday services begin at 10 a.m.

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