After communion, as they held candles and sang "Silent Night," tears streamed down many faces among 450 people at the last worship service that Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community will hold in the South Side's Goodwill cafeteria.

The building will be sold and, despite months of searching, the church of college students and tattooed countercultural folk has been unable to find an affordable location. For now, it will hold two services at tiny Walton United Methodist Church, which seats less than a quarter of Hot Metal's faithful. Plans are shaping up to share space in the larger Presbyterian Church of Mount Washington. Members are praying to buy a former bar on the South Side.

But this Christmas, there is no room at the inn for this young church, which has grown from 25 to 400 in three years.

Co-pastors Jeff Eddings, 39, and Jim Walker, 38, met 20 years ago as theater majors at Point Park College. Now, for sermons they present hilarious one-act plays. On Christmas Eve Eve, as they dubbed their last service, it was a Christmas pageant.

The Angel Gabriel was a man built like a linebacker, in blue jeans and a white shirt, with enormous feathered wings soaring from his back. After he struck Zachariah mute for doubting him, Zachariah tried to convey what had happened through charades. Members laughed as the actors concluded he had seen a giant chicken.

But Mr. Walker closed with a serious message.

"Sometimes we like to see Jesus in the manger, sleeping. We don't want him to wake up because, when he wakes up, he says 'Come, follow me,' " he said.

Like Mary's husband, Joseph, who was called in a dream to take Jesus to Egypt, Mr. Walker believes he was called in a dream to take Jesus to the South Side. He was at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when he dreamed of a bridge that looked like a trestle. A man called from the other side to "Come over and help."

He told Rev. Eddings, about it. After Point Park they had collaborated in Christian drama ministry, became youth ministers at mainline suburban churches and entered seminary.

"We saw all these young people who were leaving traditional churches and never coming back," Mr. Walker said.

But they had seen young people respond to their dramas, and joked of starting a church where the sermons were plays. After he described his dream to Rev. Eddings, his friend said he knew a bridge that looked like that. It was the Hot Metal Bridge, which led to the South Side.

In 2002, the two began walking the South Side streets. Feeling called to ministry, they sought help from the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA).

"It's totally proof that there is a Holy Spirit that we decided to participate in sponsoring this new church," said the Rev. Vera White, director of new church development for Pittsburgh Presbytery.

"Both of the pastors were Methodists at the time, neither one of them was ordained, they had no financial backing, no core group of members -- none of the things we generally expect. But they did have an incredible passion for the South Side."

The Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church also co-sponsored the mission church.

"These guys are reaching people that we can't reach," said the Rev. Don Scandrol, district superintendant for Pittsburgh.

For many disconnected people, whether they are homeless or college students or recently released prisoners, Hot Metal is home. A meal is served after the service. They hold Bible studies in coffee shops and a tattoo parlor. They care for the homeless, visit the jail and serve meals at a South Side social service center.

"We have energetic young people with a lot of idealism. They don't have much money, but what they can give to you in terms of energy is unbelievable," Mr. Walker said.

Corrine Shetter, 24, an office assistant at Carnegie Mellon University, came to Hot Metal as a Point Park student who had rejected Christianity. She had heard about the free meal.

She met "awesome people," she said, and came back because she liked them as much as the food. Last year, during a time of personal crisis, she longed for church and realized that "I wasn't coming here to look for people, but to look for God."

Such responses have made Hot Metal a magnet for those seeking new ways of ministry. It has 26 young adults in "apprenticeship" to explore church leadership. This year, at least five members entered seminary, and other seminarians attend.

It fits the genre of the "emergent church," geared to post-modern youth who respond more to stories and relationships than to rational arguments about God's existence.

"We didn't set out to be emergent. We went out to be like Jesus," Rev. Eddings said.

"The heart of it for us is the proclamation 'Jesus is Lord.' "

It's a proclamation that American youth increasingly reject, said David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Research Group and co-author of "unChristian," a book about perceptions of Christianity among American youth. The majority of teens and young adults believe that Christianity is judgmental, hypocritical and overly political. The adjective that 91 percent of young non-Christians and 80 percent of young churchgoers most closely associate with Christianity is "anti-homosexual," he said.

"This really does represent a crisis point about how to convey the depth and meaning and vitality of Christianity to a new generation," he said.

The pastors at Hot Metal confirm his findings, but say young hearts are also hungry for love, forgiveness and even holiness. New converts aren't expected to lose their tattoos.

"I've seen a lot of these kids grow spiritually. They've become leaders. They still have spiky hair, but they can lead a Bible study that'll knock your socks off," Mr. Walker said.

Hot Metal is theologically conservative but encourages open discussion of difficult issues. At Bible Fight Club, held in the basement of a tattoo parlor, participants must argue for their own interpretation of a divisive biblical issue.

"We try to foster dialogue. We work at how we can hold opposing views on things like homosexuality but still love each other and claim Jesus as Lord," Rev. Eddings said.

They have seen some church members give up sex outside of marriage. They say that comes from learning the deeper meanings of love and of sex.

"We are not relativistic by any means," Mr. Walker said.

"But our job isn't to insist that people follow the rules. It's to be a bridge to the kingdom of God, so that people taste and see that the Lord is good and begin hungering for that communion with God. When you do that, you start seeing people living holy lives."

Their embrace of the South Side community is rarely overtly evangelistic. When they serve a free meal at the Brashear Association on Tuesdays, they don't say it's from a church unless someone asks. The meal, called The Table, typically draws 75-90 people.

Joe, a muscular middle-aged man, carried a vat of soup to the dining room. He won't give his last name because he says he's a retired professional wrestler with obsessive fans. He encountered Hot Metal when he fell asleep on a bench near the Birmingham Bridge and was awakened by the church's rock band holding an outdoor worship service. He stuck around.

"They don't stereotype you or tell you you should be all dressed up," he said of why he went back to the church. "No one has to be anything other than who they are."

For Sunday night's final service, candles cast a soft glow in the darkened cafeteria.

In his parting words, Rev. Eddings said that Hot Metal Faith Community would do more than survive.

"I don't know much, but I know that God is not done with what he is doing here," he said.