From Jane Street, the Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community looks more like the restaurant and bar that once stood there than a church that draws from far beyond its South Side location.

It's so newly renovated that yesterday its walls and floor were dotted with yellow sticky notes where the architect had marked imperfections to fix.

"It's Post-It Sunday," joked the Rev. Jim Walker, one of two co-pastors who founded it in 2004, after he had a dream of Jesus calling to him from across the Hot Metal Bridge.

Though it has few traditional trappings apart from a cross that the Rev. Walker forged from rusted steel, Hot Metal is a congregation of both the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church. Both gave generously to help the congregation, which is filled with students and street people, buy and renovate the site at Jane and 27th streets.

This weekend will be the grand opening. For nearly two years it met in borrowed churches and tents after losing its rental space at Christmas 2007. On Saturday at 6 p.m. the church will host a CD release party for The Last Hope, a Christian punk band whose members lead music at Hot Metal. On Sunday, dedications will be held at the 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. services. On Thanksgiving, the church will serve free meals from noon to 2 p.m.

In the months it met at The Presbyterian Church of Mount Washington and in a tent at its new site, attendance fell from 400 to 250. Now it's growing again. Young families are joining the tattooed college kids and gray-bearded recovering addicts who have found a home at Hot Metal.

At first its leaders thought the site would be too small. But a closed church they saw needed more than $1 million in repairs. "We realized that we didn't want a church that was necessarily going to grow bigger and bigger and bigger, but a church that could provide space for the community," said the Rev. Jeff Eddings, the other co-pastor.

"We moved inside and it's been gorgeous every Sunday," the Rev. Eddings remarked, recalling Sundays shivering in the tent. "God has a sense of humor."

He reviewed $4,000 in gifts that Hot Metal has recently made as part of its commitment to give away a percentage of what it receives. Gifts of $250 went to recipients ranging from an evangelical campus ministry to a family in need of new tires. More than half the money is going to a Presbyterian ministry in Chiapas, Mexico, where Hot Metal sends volunteers.

The pastor from Chiapas, the Rev. Pablo Feliciano, was the guest preacher yesterday. His sermon was probably among the most traditional ever offered there. The Revs. Eddings and Walker met as drama students at Point Park University more than 20 years ago, and their sermons are plays acted by members of the congregation.

Yesterday, the Rev. Feliciano spoke on what it meant to bring Jesus to people of a different culture. But he figured those at Hot Metal already understood.

"This church has helped us open our understanding of a different way of doing church," he said. "You are a light unto the world, but also unto the church."

While he spoke, young children were in a room that had been painted by a tattoo artist in the congregation to resemble Noah's Ark. Fish of many colors swam across its bright blue walls.

Keerian Van Dijk, 16, a junior at Mt. Lebanon High School, first attended because her family's original church had a committee that visited other churches to see what they were doing.

"We stayed after that because we felt we belonged here," she said. "It's a younger crowd, and everyone is so welcoming. It feels like a great family."

Her father Ton Van Dijk, who sells security equipment, and Larry Sweeney, an environmental consultant from Penn Hills, became key figures in overseeing the renovation.

"There were problems we never dreamed of," Mr. Sweeney said.

When they first bought it, they noticed an odor they assumed was a musty bar smell. But when a member who worked for a gas company entered, he bolted for the basement and located a false wall. He tore it out and fixed a leaking gas line.

The building came with an enormous, ornately carved cherry wood bar that they had longed to use in the church. But there was no room and it was sold.

Now the worship space is shaped like a heart. As people file forward to receive communion, they form a heart-shaped ring.

"You're invited to the table. No one is turned away," the Rev. Walker told them. "All you need is a heart hungry for Jesus Christ."

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