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Holistic change to church

The Allegheny Center Alliance Church was in need of change...

The Allegheny Center Alliance Church was in need of change. Its congregation was divided from the community, and the church had dwindled to approximately 400 people. The local populace was 60 percent black, while the congregation was 100 percent white. Virtually all congregants lived in suburban neighborhoods, and frequented the North Side only for church functions, and then with apprehension. In the mid 1980s the Allegheny Center Alliance Church, located in Pittsburgh’s urban North Side, was a historic church with an established congregation. Over the decades, however, the surrounding neighborhood had changed. Once a prosperous area, it had become synonymous with urban decay, complete with gang violence, prostitution, drug traffic, and poverty.

The church was in need of a new understanding of the holistic nature of the gospel, along with a fresh approach to ministry. They realized individualism, materialism, and racism needed to be confessed and rejected. As the congregation opened itself to the work of God’s Spirit, it embraced initiatives designed to enable reconciliation and holistic ministry to the surrounding neighborhood.

Today Allegheny Center Alliance Church conducts dozens of ministries, including job preparation, mentoring, after-school programs, and an aggressive benevolent ministry, dispensing more than $200,000 in assistance and 60 automobiles annually. Congregational giving funds each of their many ministries. Some members have even sold their suburban homes and moved into the neighborhood to incarnate God’s presence.

One of Allegheny Center Alliance Church’s ongoing attempts to break cycles of dysfunction and pain in people's lives is the Christian Counseling Collaborative. The leadership of the church recognized that many people in their urban neighborhood did not possess the financial resources to acquire trained, biblically based counsel in areas of emotional and spiritual struggle. But the magnitude of the need far exceeded the resources of one church body, especially one involved in so many initiatives directed towards a community with great need.

The solution was found in collaborating with four other partners, including Christian counseling agencies, local universities, and independent Christian counselors. Allegheny Center Alliance Church provides the counseling space, scheduling services, oversight, and two counselors, as well as the clients from the local neighborhood and the congregation. The other agencies, which desire to serve the urban and minority constituencies but lack presence and contacts, each provides a designated number of counseling hours weekly. In each case, the fee is determined by an ability-to-pay formula that considers income, expenses, and health-plan coverage. Many clients of limited means pay nothing.

Allegheny Center Alliance Church’s Community Ministry Team also provides referrals, which is the first level of response to congregants and community members facing physical, financial and/or spiritual needs. Currently the collaborative serves more than 70 clients weekly, and anticipates that number will soon be 100. The cost to the church includes the partial salaries of two staff counselors and some designated hours from support staff. Local residents now can receive competent Christian counsel as they address how to grow in grace in the face of abuse, racism, addictions, violence, and other challenges.