Faith Presbyterian Church history

Faith joined the Bible Presbyterian Church in 1951 and took the name Faith Bible Presbyterian Church.

In January 1961, a year before the official start of Faith Church, the first worship service was held in the Medford Community Center on Main Street.

Until 1962 the church met at 14th and DuPont Streets in a former Methodist Church building that the congregation had purchased shortly after it was formed.

The first service in the new building was held on Christmas Eve 1963.

On Palm Sunday in 1965, the groundbreaking for the building in the cornfield on Stokes Road began.

On July 19, 1967, a small but dedicated group of believers held their first worship service in the “Upper Room” on the second floor of the strip mall now known as the South Hills Shopping Center on South Land Park Drive.

Services were moved to rented quarters at Parkside Community Church in early 1970, with Walter Link as pastor.

The congregation moved again in 1973 to Riverside Wesleyan Church (now renamed River’s Edge Church), near the corner of Florin Road and Riverside Blvd.

In 1976 the church purchased a modified house on a 3-acre property on Sharon Drive.

In 1987 Pastor Brown was elected Senior Pastor.

A fund drive to finance a new Sanctuary was begun in 1989.

When Gerrie Jones and her late husband, Hervey, retired and moved from Virginia to Georgia in December 1999, they didn’t know there would not be a Presbyterian church. “After all,” Gerrie said, “Richmond had one on every corner.”

Providence Presbytery began dreaming, planning, praying and working toward the birth of this congregation back in 2004.

By late 2006, nearly 200 members of Faith’s community were participating in Life Groups— small groups meeting regularly to grow in their faith in Christ.

In 2008 the members of the church reached out to the community by performing a weekend of service activities, called Compassion Weekend.

In March 2010 Faith sent a Vision Team to Ethiopia to explore and entertain the possibility of a long-term partnership with the Abaya Area Development Project through World Vision.

In June of 2012, Pastor Kevin Koslowsky was elected by the congregation to be FPC's sixth Senior Pastor.

Jim Simpson arrived in January 2013 to fill the pulpit as interim pastor after the congregation’s first pastor retired.

During 2014 the yoked congregations of the Williamston Presbyterian Church and Pelzer Presbyterian Church met with one Sunday morning worship service.

Faith Presbyterian Church observed Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 2015 as its first official service, held in the Williamston sanctuary.

Since the Presbyterian Hunger Program launched the Hunger Action Congregation initiative on June 1, 2017, 180 churches in 71 presbyteries have become HACs, and 92 of those are certified by doing ministries in all six areas of hunger action.

In 2018, Faith Presbyterian was a winner of a $50,000 Sam and Helen R. Walton Award, which they used to help cover church construction expenses.

Growth is expected to continue as part-time residents move to Blue Ridge after retirement. (From Faith Presbyterian Church’s 2019 annual report)