CINCINNATI — Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church is celebrating its 197th anniversary in February. It’s one of Cincinnati’s oldest congregations and the first church led by African Americans west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Throughout its many years of service, the church has called a lot of buildings home, but this year, more than any other, Pastor Rev. Dr. Alphonse Allen, Jr. said his congregation has been isolated.

On recent Sundays, his wife, Fran Allen, still leads the choir in joyful noise, but it's a choir of four. The music still fills the sanctuary, but there are only a handful of people in the pews. Allen still stands at the lectern, but he's preaching to a camera.

“One of the things about not being able to come into church, is it just makes you appreciate it more," he said. "Not being able to see each other’s face makes you appreciate them more.”

After 13 years, the senior pastor said he got used to preaching for the Cincinnati church in a certain way.

"There's certain stories in the Bible that everybody knows," he said.

While it's not his home parish, Allen has made Ohio his home.

He grew up in Pennsylvania and got started preaching there. Allen said that's where he learned to write his own sermons, something he always made time for despite whatever else might be on the docket for the day.

“Cause the churches I was pastoring were not, you know, they couldn’t sustain me so I had to work,” he said. “So, I was bivocational.”

For a while, Allen was a part-time addiction counselor, an eye-opening experience that taught him lessons he still shares in his sermons decades later. Now that he preaches full-time, for a congregation he describes as predominantly upper-middle class, Allen said he tries to call out to those society rejects.

“You were supposed to be a statistic," he preached one January morning. "You were supposed to be a failure, but God chose you anyhow.”

Since its founding in 1824, Allen said Allen Temple AME was made for God's chosen rejects.

Two Black men, Rev. James King and Rev. Phillip Brodie built the church from scratch because they felt rejected by the white congregations in Cincinnati.

They started gathering at homes, growing over the years to become an influential breeding ground for Black leaders in the city.

“The first Black city solicitor, the first Black judge, the first Black doctor with hospital privileges, the first Black ophthalmologist, they were all members of Allen Temple AME Church,” Allen said.

Even before then, the church's pastors preached anti-slavery and opened the church as a way-station for the Underground Railroad.

Now, 65 pastors later, Allen knows his congregation is facing a much different reality.

“We’re in a time where COVID is still ravaging through our community,” he said.

Allen said that comes with a new set of challenges and threats to the congregation.

He tries to lead by example, keeping the congregation home, preaching to a camera. His wife, a healthcare worker, was recently vaccinated and the couple offered to answer any questions about her experience or help older parishioners navigate the vaccination system.

Meanwhile, he tries to keep Sunday as normal as possible. Allen said though he can't see his congregation staring back at him, he knows they're there and reaches out to them as if they were.

Allen Temple AME has had at least half a dozen homes over its long history, so Allen said the church knows better than most how to cope with change.

“Preachers come and preachers go, but when you have a solid foundation of faithful hardworking members then a church has longevity,” he said.

Allen hopes the foundation, the trust in God, and the message of his acceptance transcends the distance and digital divide until the congregation can come together again.