The Beginning
In 2001, a group of 10-15 people at Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA began meeting to explore and discern God’s will for a new worship gathering at that church. We prayerfully began this journey together, and with the support of Bellefield and the Pittsburgh Presbytery took slow steps as we felt led. By the end of 2002, we had a clearer vision for this calling and articulated this to the Bellefield community. The name the “Open Door” was breathed into existence in this time as well.
In the summer of 2003, the Open Door hosted four “pilot” gatherings. The gatherings were designed to focus on worshiping God together in more participatory and multi-sensory ways than the church has traditionally known. This includes welcoming artistic and creative expression into the gatherings and exploring the wealth of resources that can be found in various church traditions through the ages. Also indispensable for this fledgling community was authenticity with those around us and ensuring that following Jesus Christ was a daily walk rather than a weekly event.
On September 7, 2003 the Sunday evening gathering began in full. A group of individuals have been meeting weekly to digest passages and topics from the Bible and design a full gathering around these themes. As time went by, the Open Door began to grow together in community, serve our neighbors in new ways, and discover what it means to be a follower of Christ in an increasingly postmodern world.
A year later, the Open Door sensed God’s calling to become a church plant in an urban Pittsburgh setting. We began to pursue this more formally by forming a group of indigenous leaders to continue in prayer and begin in planning. A task force was also formed with a few people from the Open Door, and a few from Bellefield and from the Presbytery to provide oversight to the process.
As of October 2005, we have a new home in Pittsburgh’s East End, which is near the neighborhoods of East Liberty, Highland Park, Friendship, Garfield, and Morningside. We are having weekly worship gatherings, which take place at the Union Project. We have found good harmony in the Union Project vision for these neighborhoods, and look forward to partnering with them even more. For more on this transition, read on.
The Open Door and the Union Project
This is detailed a description of how relocation to Pittsburgh’s East End and a facility partnership with the Union Project will enhance the mission of the Open Door.
As a community we feel led to continue to expand our vision of creative, artistic, multi-sensory and participatory worship. A fuller vision is unfolding which would relocate the existing Open Door community into Pittsburgh’s diverse East End. This socially, economically and racially diverse neighborhood is already home to a flourishing community of artists, primarily at a place called the Union Project.
The Open Door’s vision, to use its artistic approach to worship as a means of incarnating the good news of Jesus Christ fits perfectly with the Union Project’s mission to create community in common ground by utilizing faith and the arts. It is this common ground and similar vision that excites us – the opportunity to daily invest in the lives of East End residents by occupying a common space while also developing and growing the body of Christ. Here, the Open Door has the opportunity to support the faith component at The Union Project. And for this we feel that the relocation to the Union Project is not only God-inspired and God-designed but is also strategic in terms of building Christ’s Kingdom.
We have been in communication with the Union Project for almost a year, dreaming about what this collaboration could look like. We believe that this partnership offers us a missional presence in the Union Project facility (and its surrounding neighborhoods) as a tenant for as long as the space matches the needs of Open Door. Phase 1 (to be completed fall 2005) of the Union Project development includes space for artists, community development organizations, a coffee shop and multi-use spaces designed to attract community activities, all within the very space in which we will also gather for worship. This will provide an extraordinary opportunity for us to work, partner, relate, connect and live out the Gospel with diverse populations and organizations. It can happen seamlessly and naturally as we daily invest in the East End together at the Union Project.
There is artistic development happening all over the East End. New galleries, artist’s lofts, cafés, ethnic restaurants and other types of businesses are moving into the East End on a weekly basis. This activity is an indicator of a grassroots movement among 20-30 year olds and artists to move into this section of Pittsburgh. The Union Project has been another part of the movement and they have an established name and presence among the arts community already. We see an opportunity for the Open Door to benefit from the community redevelopment initiatives already in place and use them as fertile ground for sharing the Gospel. By locating ourselves in their space and this neighborhood, we see an amazing opportunity to connect, partner and develop relationship with young artists and organizations in the East End. We sense that God is calling us to partner and walk alongside this movement and be a physical and spiritual presence among these people.
With the support and blessing of Bellefield Presbyterian Church (our mother church), we seek to expand our identity as a worshiping community whose vision is to carry the gospel of Christ in the direction that God has placed before us. Through prayer and over time, God has directed the Open Door community to the Union Project, strategically located at the epicenter of the four unique neighborhoods with whom we seek to connect and within which we seek to minister. The Union Project and the East End present an advantageous combination of neighborhood, space, vision and location for the Open Door community to launch as a new church and discover what God might be calling us to along this faithful journey.
