Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette
	Jon Fowler, left, youth pastor at South Hills Bible Chapel in Peters, and Jamie Zajicek, 17, a junior at South Fayette High School, buckle a helmet on Christian Fink 10, of Peters, as he prepares to go up the "climbing wall" in the youth section. South Hills Bible Chapel has built an elaborate facility for its youth ministry in an addition at the back of its building.
	Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette
	Christian Fink ascends the "climbing wall"' in the new youth section of South Hills Bible Chapel.
	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette
	The Open Door Director Brian Zeisloft, right, helps third-graders Tre'Vaughn Johnson and Amanda Gergis with their homework at the after-school program in the basement of the First United Presbyterian Church of Crafton Heights in Crafton Heights.

The youth center at South Hills Bible Chapel was busy on a recent weekday afternoon. A high-school Christian rock band warmed up and a boy scaled a rock-climbing wall. Along a corridor were photos of teens covered in mud from Muck Fest, a church event.

"When kids walk into this space, they feel that 'someone here understands me,'" said Jon Fowler, high-school youth pastor at the evangelical church in Peters.

It is among a small but growing number of churches that have created special, fun spaces for youths. Youth ministers call them "neutral turf," where teens who don't like church feel safe enough to hear about Jesus. But some experts warn that without careful adult leadership, youth centers can isolate teens from the larger church.

Though many centers are in affluent churches, there are exceptions.

The First Presbyterian Church of Crafton Heights is in a racially mixed, working-class neighborhood. It has an average Sunday attendance of 115 and a youth center that volunteers rehabilitated from an old movie theater at a cash cost of less than $15,000.

Called the Open Door, it opened in 1987 and last year drew 311 youths. On a typical Friday night, 100 come for basketball, art lessons, computer games and Foosball. They also come for tutoring, Bible study or day camp.

"All of it has spiritual content," said the Rev. David Carver, pastor since 1993. From 1982-1988 he was the church's "street minister," and one of those who swung a sledgehammer and laid floor tile to create The Open Door. He tiled a big, red cross into the center of that floor to keep the mission clear.

Sloping theater aisles lead to a gym floor. The projection booth is an art room, the screen area a lounge with table games. A new computer room has 12 donated desktops. In the kitchen, kids help prepare food -- learning to cook in the process.

"A church building can be a little intimidating, but the Open Door is not intimidating. It's fun and safe and you can do things you can't do in a church. If you want to reach teenage guys in this neighborhood, you need a basketball court," said Brian Zeisloft, 31, director of The Open Door since 2001.

While many youth centers are just for teens, The Open Door starts with first-graders.

Wakita Owens and Monteyia Johnson, third-graders at Schaeffer Elementary School, go to the church for tutoring sponsored by The Open Door.

"It's my favorite place to go -- after Chuck E. Cheese," said Monteyia, 10, who loves the art classes.

Wakita, 9, enjoys games but, "I like to go there because I like to learn about God," she said.

It puts Bible lessons into practice, the Rev. Carver said.

"The church says to love your neighbor, and here you play dodgeball and have to decide whether to cheat or not," he said.

The Rev. Carver believes that The Open Door keeps the neighborhood young. On a typical Sunday, the largest age group in his church is 18 to 30, a demographic missing from many churches.

Ten young adults moved to the neighborhood solely to serve at The Open Door, he said. Every Sunday night, 12 young adults play dodgeball with sixth graders.

"All of what we do is built on relationships with volunteers," Mr. Zeisloft said.

About half of the teens who attend the church youth group have no family ties to First Presbyterian. They come because of The Open Door, meeting in a drab room with beat-up chairs.

"Kids will come to a really ugly room if they think you love them," the Rev. Carver said.

"More than any geographical space we give the kids, the most important space we give them is in our lives."

Whether church youth centers make a lasting spiritual impact depends on relationships and the degree to which they are integrated into the rest of the church, said Chap Clark, professor of youth, family and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and author of "Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers."

Many teens are hurting, he said, because activities such as sports are no longer aimed at building their character but at gratifying the egos of adults. The church becomes part of the problem if it focuses more on the number of teens who show up than on caring about each teen.

"Kids have been abandoned, and their trust needs to be rebuilt. That is what is good about the youth centers," he said.

But they risk becoming isolated from the rest of the church. And if older church members aren't involved, they become resentful of the youth, he said.

"This is a great crisis in the church. We are fragmenting ourselves out of community," Dr. Clark said.

A parallel concern is that teens will be bewildered when they try to join a church as an adult, said Mark Yaconelli, director of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project at San Francisco Theological Seminary.

"If you're in a low-income neighborhood and you've created a facility like that for latchkey kids, it can be a really positive benefit," he said.

But he suspects that most are in wealthy communities, and are mainly trying to compete with secular entertainment.

"For those kids, does it meet their spiritual needs? No. It's fun, but as soon as they turn 18 or 19 they leave. When they come back to the church at 25 they have no idea where they are. They say, 'When I was a kid and we went to church, we played on a climbing wall. What the heck is this?'"

Jayson Samuels, a student minister at St. Stephen Episcopal Church in Sewickley, turns that argument on its head.

"That might not be as much an indictment of our work as on the inability of the church to meet the needs of kids," he said in the lounge of Henning House, a three-story home that the parish restored for the youth in 2002 at a cost of $1.5 million.

The first floor is a lounge, with couches, restaurant-style booths, Foosball, air hockey, pool and video games. Second-floor rooms serve as a dance studio, places for small-group discussion and more intimate social space. The huge attic is for worship and concerts, with amphitheater-style seating.

The building is used seven days a week. Every church-sponsored event includes adult volunteers who build relationships with the youth, the student ministers said. Each week five sets of parents are invited to join their teens at the youth worship service -- and a few adults have become regulars. About once a month the youths attend church with their parents.

About 200 teens come through Henning House each week. The church draws 1,000 on Sunday.

"Our facility has allowed us to reach out to a segment of the student population that probably wouldn't step inside the church building," Mr. Samuels said.

They knew they had made a real world impact a few years ago when some high school boys came to complain that their ministry was making the girls refuse sex. At around the same time, Henning House got egged.

"But we are doing outreach to those kids. The mentality here is that everyone is welcome," Mr. Steffey said.

An agnostic high school student once asked him how the church could justify a $1.5 million youth center when there were so starving people in the world, Mr. Steffey said.

His response was that teens there are taught "that you are blessed to be a blessing. We don't want a self-centered spirituality."

This year's mission trips include working in a Haitian orphanage and helping victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild.

"Some people think the church is a museum. Some think it's a hospital. We like to think of Henning House as a staging area to send people out," he said.

At South Hills Bible Chapel, Mr. Fowler thinks of the youth center as a green house for growing Christians. Teens are a high priority for the church.

"Sixty percent of those who attend here are between 35 and 55, with three children," said the Rev. Ron Moore, senior pastor.

The church, which draws 1,600 on weekends, has just built its first sanctuary, with 1,400 seats, for $9 million. The youth center was built five years ago for $2.5 million, while the congregation worshipped in a gym. It is now overcrowded with 150 teens weekly.

The teens join adults in service ministries such as setting up 750 chairs in the gym each Saturday, parking cars and taping the service for cable TV. They assist in ministry with younger children and help lead the worship, the Rev. Moore said.

Each summer the church hosts Teen Madness, a weeklong festival whose highlight is Muck Fest. A pit behind the church is filled with topsoil and 2,000 gallons of water for teens to play in. Volunteers from local fire departments hose them off.

In the midst of all that, Mr. Fowler tells them that Jesus can change their life. Many with no family tie to the church profess faith -- 100 last year alone.

"The irony is that, in their hearts, they're cleaner than they have ever been before. Then they go out and get dirtier than they've ever been before," he said.

Jamie Zajicek, 17, a junior at South Fayette High School came to the church two years ago when a friend invited her to Teen Madness. Now she's a regular.

"All of the things here, like the bands and the climbing wall and the pictures, make it more lively and make you more interested in church and what it's all about. The physical appearance attracts you. Then you start listening to the sermons, and it just gets better," she said.

The teens said they felt part of the church, not just the youth group. Nate Hanson, 16, a sophomore at Peters, plays guitar with the worship band "because I wanted to give back to the church," he said.

"I don't want to just sit here and hang out. I feel connected to the church as a whole. The church here has as way of encompassing all the little groups and making it feel like one big family."