Pastor looks back at long career at Faith Fellowship Alliance Church
OAKLAND TWP — The Rev. Richard Jenks is retiring from his longtime position as pastor of Faith Fellowship Alliance Church, but the only thing he wants to do in retirement is continue to preach.
Preaching is in his blood — his grandfather was a pastor in a church until he was 86 years old — and Jenks took up the mantle early, when he was only 14 years old, when he practiced sharing a religious message by speaking to tree stumps.
“I love doing what I do, and it was a calling,” Jenks said. “The first time I preached, I preached out in the woods to all the tree stumps and praying. I thought I had a 30-minute message, but when I got up to speak I got it out in five minutes. That was my first experience.”
Jenks is taking another cue from his grandfather — by retiring from the church at age 86. His last day at Faith Fellowship Alliance is Sept. 28, and he said he is only retiring because his age is beginning to affect him.
“I used to be able to preach four times on a Sunday — and wish for a fifth time — but now, I get done with one and I have to rest a while,” he said. “When I’m in the car, I’m 40 years old, and when I sit at my desk I’m 40, but when I stand and walk I’m 86.”
Jenks started his tenure at Faith Fellowship Alliance in 1978, when the church was still known as Institute Hill Alliance Church and made its home in Butler. Jenks had been a traveling evangelist and worked at a few other churches prior to starting his job in Butler County, but he said he never held a position for more than three years.
That changed when he started at Institute Hill Alliance Church, where he said he found a responsive and dedicated congregation.
“It’s a great church with wonderful people,” Jenks said. “The church is a church that really wants to follow God.”
In the early 1980s, the Institute Hill church was separating into different churches, and Jenks helped oversee the move to its current home, a 10-acre spot in Oakland Township. The church staff broke ground at the new location in 1983. Jenks said he even helped give the church its name, which was based on the name the other separating branch gave itself, Community Alliance Church.
“We just wanted a name that would be inclusive,” Jenks said. “Fellowship is a good name, and faith is supposed to be the basis of it, so we came up with ‘Faith Fellowship.’ Community Alliance has the community name — we wanted that same thing for here.”
Construction was completed on Faith Fellowship’s new home in 1984. A basement was built on the new property and used for two years before the first-floor narthex, offices and sanctuary were completed. The congregation and staff moved upstairs on June 10, 1986. A parsonage was added in 1994 and a youth building in about 1996, according to Jenks.
While the move was a big change for the church and Jenks’ career, he said that the music of the church also has been a big shift. The church has several musical instruments placed around its altar, with Jenks saying the music has become an important part of each worship service.
“Now, with drums and all the things that go with it — I think I was the first pastor in our Western Pennsylvania District that had drums,” he said.
Faith Fellowship Alliance Church has formed a search committee to find a new pastor in the wake of Jenks’ looming retirement.
Jim Coltz, lead elder of Faith Fellowship Alliance, said the church put together a search committee to select a new pastor to fill the role. He said the committee is working on a survey to distribute to the congregation, so they can have input as to who the next pastor is.
However, Coltz said, the church is focused now on celebrating Jenks’ time with Faith Fellowship Alliance.
“We know we need to find another pastor. We want to focus on him and honoring him,” Coltz said. “He’s been a great friend, a great spiritual leader.”
He added that the committee probably won’t select a new pastor before Jenks retires, so the board of directors is also considering whether to hire an interim pastor or have guest speakers in between full-time pastors.
Jenks’ retirement was sad news for people in the congregation, because of his longevity with Faith Fellowship Alliance.
Bonnie Jacobson, administrator of the Faith Fellowship Alliance Church, said it will be odd to have a new pastor, because Jenks is so ingrained with the church and its identity.
“It’s going to be a difficult transition. It’s bittersweet, but we’re happy for him,” Jacobson said. “He’s not just a pastor, he’s a friend to everyone here.”
Jenks, too, said he will miss seeing the staff of the church daily, and the people of his congregation at least weekly. While walking around the church on Thursday, Aug. 28, Jenks said hello to several people, including a Bible study group that meets in the church basement every Thursday morning.
Jenks said he has made many personal friends with people at the church in his years there.
“I'm going to miss them,” he said.
Although he is leaving a job he loves, Jenks has another passion that he can stay busy with in retirement. In a corner of the church behind partitions is an art studio that Jenks uses to paint landscapes with acrylic paint. For years, he has painted landscapes — usually mountains and rivers — that utilize a rainbow of color and take hours of work.
Jenks is a traveler, as evidenced by his time as a roving evangelist, but the landscapes he paints are not actually based on any scene he has physically viewed.
“They just come out of my head, or off the end of my brush,” he said. “I just like to paint mountains and lakes. I used to paint mountains with a brush, then I started doing it with a knife, and you get so much detail doing it with a knife.”
Like the journey of the church’s search committee, Jenks said he believes God will guide him through his time in retirement, as he has throughout his time as pastor of Faith Fellowship Alliance. He related his retirement to the mantra he presents in his sermons, which has always been about following God to new places.
“The theme of my messages in my life has been ‘The Deeper Life,’ that God has more for you,” Jenks said. “When I became a pastor, I knew that would be my message, is that God has more than just salvation for us, he wants us to go home with him.”
