Duquesne, Penn. – It’s a story often told in once-thriving towns where industry and opportunity have left, while residents and institutions remain to sort through the change. Businesses, schools and churches close. Economic, cultural and racial demographics shift. And the social structure that once supported residents is replaced with something new, often unrecognizable to past generations.
Along the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, in the community of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, First Presbyterian Church has weathered these changes and remains a vital part of its neighborhood. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Judi Slater, has served First Presbyterian for more than three decades and has seen the congregation and community experience immense change.
Slater came to the church in the early 1990s, 10 years after the Duquesne Steel Works mill began to shutter, which sent economic ripples through the community. The town’s population shrank from 21,000 in 1930 to 8,500 in 1990, and it now sits at just above 5,000 people. It is identified as the second poorest community in Pennsylvania. Declining membership meant the church could no longer afford a full-time pastor, but Slater accepted a part-time call, believing God still had plans for the congregation.
“I went there as a last resort,” she said. “It was an older White congregation in an area that had a growing African American population, and they thought I was coming to be with them until they closed. But here I am 33 years later.”
Around seven years into her service with the church, Slater says an elder at a session meeting raised the question, “What are we doing here?”
“We don’t look like the community anymore,” another elder injected. “We’re just dying off.”
Rather than succumbing to despair over the situation, Slater and the session started to pray and discern and brainstorm. Sure, closing was an option. Relocating to an area of town “that looked more like us” was also suggested. Another person said, “We could just stay here until the last one of us dies and turn the lights out.”
Another elder, who is still an active member of the congregation, suggested this: “If God wants our doors to close, they’ll close … Let’s go out doing ministry and stop worrying about survival and start worrying about what we can do for the community, which has lots of needs. We’re here — let God use us for whatever God will use us for.”
“If God wants our doors to close, they’ll close … Let’s go out doing ministry and stop worrying about survival and start worrying about what we can do for the community …”
Twenty-five years later, and after many faith-filled efforts to understand and respond to the community’s needs and concerns, First Presbyterian of Duquesne is alive with ministry. Its 79 members reflect the diversity of the neighborhood: one-third of the membership is African American, the average age is much younger and there are 10 preschool-age children at the church.
Opening the doors wide
One of the first efforts to engage the community began with the youth group. While attending Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Slater had worked with youth and continued to do so in her first call. She asked each of the five youth in the church to invite two friends to youth group, resulting in a group of 15 students.
The church began to prioritize hospitality, welcoming newcomers and returnees alike. A weekly lunch following worship offers time to foster new relationships and become involved in one another’s lives.
First Presbyterian hosts a mission store in its converted manse that – in partnership with other churches in the presbytery – provides home goods for neighborhood families, including many newly arrived asylum-seeking families from Afghanistan. English language classes for these new arrivals to the U.S. also allow social time for many of the Afghani women to gather outside the home.
The church supports the Dolly Parton Foundation’s Imagination Library, providing free books to preschool children. A Monday afternoon club for children ages 4-12 offers a Sunday school program for 16 students along with teenage helpers from the community.
Church members host the Duquesne Community Victory Garden, where 32 families come to the church to learn about healthy eating, share in growing produce for themselves, and give to the community.
These and many other activities are the foundation of how First Presbyterian and its members have fostered relationships with the community around them. A testimony to this involvement, notes Slater, is that $37,000 was given for mission activities last year by donors from outside the church. Pittsburgh Presbytery enhancement grants have provided additional seed money for accessibility and programs. This support is helping the congregation to fulfill its mission, rooted in Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”
Mission outposts
Slater’s work at extending mission hasn’t stopped with the people of Duquesne. She’s also chair of the Matthew 25 steering committee for Pittsburgh Presbytery. Churches in the presbytery have joined together to help eliminate $2 million in medical debt, provide volunteers to and recovery-oriented Bibles for inmates at the Alleghany County jail, whose director of chaplaincy is a Presbyterian minister, and give help to under-resourced communities.
“My soapbox has been, can we not see our churches in these communities as mission outposts?” says Slater of her Matthew 25 work in the region. “Can we not grasp a vision of what we could do in these communities if we came together as a presbytery?”
The presbytery recently hosted a Stone Catcher Retreat, helping to initiate a project whereby people of the presbytery will “stand in the gap and be stone catchers for the marginalized in our society,” following Jesus’ example of confronting those wanting to throw stones at the woman caught in adultery.
Fifteen people from nine churches attended the retreat in early February to learn about standing in the gap and begin formulating a “Scandalous Christian Project” the group would enact. A single project hasn’t yet been identified, but participants hope to address immigration or LGBTQIA+ concerns in the coming months.
A member of Pittsburgh Presbytery for 47 years, the Rev. Janet Edwards has followed Slater’s ministry with interest. Edwards says Slater’s “superpowers” are found not only in her constant attitude of saying “yes” to opportunities but in turning her “yes” into action.
Edwards highlighted another ministry Slater has provided to the presbytery – seminary internships that introduce students to church service rooted in community mission.
“For a generation of students, Judi has both given them immersion in urban ministry and drawn on their special talents to widen the ministry of this small congregation into a mighty witness of service in the community,” she says. “As I know her, Judi never thinks ‘small.’ She simply thinks ‘mission.’”
“Judi never thinks ‘small.’ She simply thinks ‘mission.’”
Slater feels the work of First Presbyterian Church of Duquesne and Pittsburgh Presbytery are often overwhelmed by the needs in their neighborhoods. But she’s not giving up hope.
“Sometimes it feels like a drop in the bucket with the problems in our communities,” she reflects. “There are a lot of issues. But at other times, it feels meaningful, like we’re at least doing something.”
