Faith and Fellowship Center offers religious diversity
In an inconspicuous building just east of USU campus, a religious congregation meets each Sunday afternoon. This week they’re discussing the indigenous religious tradition of shamanism. The week before they learned about God and prayer. In coming weeks they’ll focus on Jainism, rebirth, morals from the world’s religions and many other topics.
This is a group that might answer “all of the above” when asked about their religion.
The building is the Faith and Fellowship Center, a small house on 700 East that has been converted into a nondenominational religious gathering place. The people are an Interfaith congregation, a group that wants to learn and celebrate the universal teachings of the world’s religions. The Faith and Fellowship Center is a fitting place to do so.
“The purpose of Interfaith, like the purpose of the center, is to provide a place where people, especially students, can come worship and feel at home,” said the Rev. Hannah Thomsen, who leads the weekly Interfaith services.
Relatively few students attend the services, though Thomsen said she hopes that will change. She wants to provide a place where students can deal with religious issues, especially after leaving home for the first time to attend college.
In addition to the Interfaith group, the center is used by a variety of groups, including Buddhists and Christians. A chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous also meets there, Thomsen said. The center is governed by a board of people affiliated with several local religious groups, including Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians, Thomsen said.
From the outside, the Faith and Fellowship Center is tough to pick out. As a small, one-story house several decades old, it would be indistinguishable from the homes around it if not for the sign in the lawn with its name. Its interior is just as unassuming. An open kitchen and a living room area with couches, chairs and a TV make up most of its space.
The house’s backyard is a peace garden, with trees, plants, gravel walkways and a “peace totem pole,” a wooden pole about 6 feet high inscribed with words promoting peace. A young family lives in an apartment in the house’s basement, and the rent they pay helps fund the center, Thomsen said.
Sunday’s service included prayers from Earth-based religious traditions, an “Apache honoring song” and songs of thanksgiving (accompanied by Thomsen’s guitar). Thomsen’s husband Ed, who tells a story for the children each week from various traditions, told the story of baby Moses (as written in ancient Jewish scripture rather than the more commonly known Bible version).
Becky Shreeve, who practices shamanism, then spoke about her religion, which she described as a “connection between the physical world and the spiritual world.” She also displayed stones, liquids and other objects she said she uses as a shaman.
Carol Nielson, who regularly attends the Interfaith services with her husband and three kids, said she enjoys the services because of how much her family learns about world religions.
“I think it’s a good way to teach kids,” Nielson said. “We were searching three years for a place where we could come worship and feel comfortable. This has been a really good thing”
In addition to the Interfaith services, Alpha Course, a program designed to introduce people to Christianity, has also started recently at the center. The program always includes a meal, then a discussion of some aspect of Christianity, said Jay Sambamurthi, who leads the course. The course is designed to promote learning, and no question is off limits, he said.
Hopefully, services such as those at the center will build bridges of understanding between people, Thomsen said.
“All religions teach good,” Thomsen said. “They all teach a moral code, so when people don’t get along, everyone’s to blame for not following their religion.”
The Faith and Fellowship Center is located at 1315 E. 700 North in Logan. For more information, call the center at 753-0002.