When one hears the word “church,” there’s a good chance that the next word that comes to mind is “tradition,” or some form thereof. But the V1 Church in Farmingdale and its pastor, Mike Signorelli, take a notable amount of pride in being different.
“Somebody put it like this: we’re a group of misfits who are perfectly placed,” Signorelli said. “It’s a church who loves all people, because God loves all people. Whenever somebody walks through the door, what we all say is ‘welcome home.’ Home is somewhere where you’re loved unconditionally. We don’t judge. That’s not our job. We just give people Jesus and let them do the rest.”
The church, which is non-denominational, has a fittingly unorthodox origin story; one that, up until a few years ago, wouldn’t have even been possible. It started as a livestreaming event from Signorelli’s home in Indiana that reached several Long Island residents, who all gathered together in a house and watched the service. Signorelli and his wife Julie, the church’s co-pastor, saw their viewership increase to the point of needing a bigger venue; thus, they began to stream their services on one of the movie screens at the UA Theater in Farmingdale. Signorelli has travelled from Indiana to Farmingdale on a couple of occasions to host his services in-person, doing so for a Christmas service on Dec. 18, 2016. However, he recently moved his family to New York permanently, doing so prior to the church’s Jan. 29 service, which was a children’s ministry with live music.
“If and when we go beyond 500 or 600 people, we will need to go to a bigger spot [than the UA],” Signorelli said, also noting that he hopes the church will be going “full throttle” by Easter. “We love the fact that there’s 360 degrees of parking. There’s a Starbucks in the parking lot; that’s a huge bonus. There’s a lot that we like here. It’s familiar territory. If you tell someone to meet you at the UA, they know what you mean. And it breaks down that idea of ‘I’m going into a church’ and that being a scary, weird thing.”
Signorelli embraces his church’s location in part because he feels it forces people to reconsider what a church is, or what it’s often expected to be. With secularization becoming more and more common, the trend Signorelli sees is not a decline in spiritual appetites, but rather the people’s desire for a new method of delivery. He attributes the rise of psychics to this very phenomenon.
“In a time where major denominations are closing their doors, psychics are literally holding down storefronts and different houses,” Signorelli said. “I think the reason why is, people in Long Island believe in the spiritual realm and they want to access it, but they don’t want to access it with the religion they were grown up in. So with us, we’re teaching people that you can have a direct connection with God and you don’t have to go through a person.”
Signorelli also recognized that his church’s status as non-denominational, coupled with its origin story and upstart following, could lead some to believe that he has invented a new religion. While Signorelli refuses to apply a specific label to his church, he doesn’t consider his religion an invention. He instead deems it a return-to-roots approach.
“In a way I’m taking it back to where it all began,” Signorelli said. “It began in people’s homes. The Bible says that they were so radically generous and they gave to each other, that they actually met all of their needs amongst each other. Could you imagine a church that gave to each other so well that nobody had any need? I don’t know that we’re doing anything new. We’re just doing something so old that it hasn’t been seen in a while.”
For further information, visit the V1 Church’s Facebook page.
