William and Dorothy Hall will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary Tuesday, just two days after the congregation at Pentecostals of Suffolk honors them as the founders of the church.

William Hall and Larry Michaels started the church in 1970. Michaels left the church soon afterward and gave over the pastorate to Hall.

The church met in the Halls’ home initially, but several families joined in the first few weeks, and Hall knew he would have to expand. So he purchased the present site on Carolina Road for $18,000 and began to build the church by hand.

“It’s a nice building, even if I did build it,” Hall said.

Hall continued as the pastor until 2005, when the Rev. Michael Webb took over. He left after four years, and William Hall’s brother, the Rev. Robert Hall, came out of retirement to lead the church.

“I’ve tried to take a back seat since I retired,” William Hall said.

Even so, he will be delivering the message this Sunday for the Founders’ Day and his anniversary celebration.

He and his wife, Dorothy, are natives of West Virginia. They married when he was 18 and she was 17 — but, as her husband points out, only a few days shy of 18.

“I outran her daddy,” he joked. “He was pretty unhappy. But we got along well after that.”

The couple had met three years earlier, after he had eyed her a couple of weeks in a row at the theater. Finally, he sat down behind her and her date one night, tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Why don’t you come sit beside me?” he recalled recently.

She did so, and her date didn’t say anything. Hall is still surprised he didn’t get punched in the nose.

“I’ve told that to a lot of people, and they laugh,” he said. “I even laugh about it sometimes.”

The couple has four children and more than a dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Many of them plan to be in town Sunday for the anniversary celebration.

“I’m hoping a lot of them will be here Sunday,” he said.

The church is located at 641 Carolina Road. The Founders’ Day service begins at 10 a.m., and the 65th wedding anniversary celebration will be held following the 6 p.m. service.