Pastor celebrates 45th anniversary in Faith Fellowship pulpit
OAKLAND TWP — After pastoring for short stints at three churches and serving as a traveling evangelist throughout the eastern U.S., the 39-year-old Rev. Richard “Dick” Jenks hoped to stay at then-Institute Hill Alliance Church in Butler for three years.
He has met that goal 15 times over.
Jenks, 83, celebrated his 45th anniversary as pastor at what is now Faith Fellowship Alliance Church off Fared Drive.
“It just was the place God prepared me for,” Jenks said of his tenure at the church.
Jenks oversaw the church’s name change as well as its move from the intersection of Second and Beech streets in Butler to its breezy, 10-acre spot in the countryside.
Jenks recalled traveling to Canada in the late 1970s or early 1980s while a pastor at the Butler church and sitting by a scenic lake.
“God said ‘I want you to get your men together and tell them I’m going to build the church by giving to them, miraculously, money they don’t have,” Jenks recalled.
