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Since 1970, East End Cooperative Ministry has been building a community of opportunity in Pittsburgh’s East End.
We are dedicated to helping vulnerable adults and at-risk children and youth throughout our East End neighborhoods. An interfaith ministry, EECM seeks to make a difference in the lives of the individuals and families it serves by tending to their needs for today as well as their hopes for tomorrow.
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Council Spotlight

Council Spotlight

This is where we profile the dedicated congregations and representatives that make up EECM’s Council of Congregations! We also feature our representatives and congregations in the EECM Impact newsletter.

Congregation Snapshot:
First Baptist Church of Pittsburgh

The First Baptist Church of Pittsburgh is located at the northeast corner of the University of Pittsburgh campus in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. As a "house of prayer for all peoples" (Isaiah 56:7) the congregation carries out its ministry to people of diverse racial, cultural, and language backgrounds. The church is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches, USA. Its pastor is the Reverend Gary Denning.

First Baptist was originally located downtown at Third and Grant (where the Grant Building is today).  At that location, the congregation hosted Frederick Douglass for a series of anti-slavery lectures in the 1840s – the only church in Pittsburgh to do so. It also organized the Pittsburgh Baptist Association. In 1861, two daughter churches, the Union Baptist Church and the Fifth Ave. Baptist Church combined with the First Baptist congregation to become the Fourth Ave. Baptist Church, in a new building at Fourth and Ross (where the City-County Offices are today).

In that location it was particularly active in providing a "church missionary" who practiced hands-on delivery of medical services, serving upwards of 2000 families yearly during the cholera epidemics of Pittsburgh.

The Church’s mission to Chinatown ultimately led to what would become today’s Pittsburgh Chinese Church, and many years later the current Oakland church would foster a Chinese student congregation that now has its own building on Dithridge St.

Allegheny County bought First Baptist’s downtown building in 1909, so between February 1910 and March 1912, the congregation built the current building in Oakland. The architect was Bertram Goodhue, partner with Ralph Adams Cram (Calvary Episcopal and East Liberty Presbyterian). Charles Connick designed the windows, the first major work in a career that included more than 5000 commissions; his last major work in Pittsburgh was Heinz Chapel. This background makes First Baptist interesting to architects and historians.

While downtown, between 1812 and 1909, First Baptist founded 22 other Baptist churches in the Pittsburgh area.  At its current Oakland location, two of those churches rejoined the mother church, Oakland Baptist in 1929 and East End Baptist (originally on Shady Ave. near Calvary Episcopal but later on Negley where the Union Project is today) in the 1970s.

Today First Baptist is active in campus ministry to Pitt and CMU, offers concerts free to the public, and hosts a Early Childhood Development program as well as a summer YMCA Day-Camp. It is again fostering two congregations, one in Japanese language – the Hallelujah Community Church and one in Spanish – the Iglesia Bautista Hispana. It is also host to the International Women’s Association of Pittsburgh, formerly connected with the Pittsburgh Center for International Visitors. First Baptist has been an active EECM member congregation for many years. Its representative on the Council of Congregations is C.T. Matthews. In 2012 the congregation will celebrate its 200th birthday, with 100 years in the current building.

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