By VALARIE BUNN

In 1891, Mrs. John (Mary) Denny started a Sunday school in her home at First Avenue NE and 91st Street. Her husband and his cousin, Arthur Denny, were among Seattle's pioneers. In a few years, the little Sunday school group grew into a church, known as the Oak Lake Tabernacle, located just east of Aurora Avenue on North 100th Street.

A church which had begun meeting downtown at the turn of the century became known as the University Gospel Tabernacle when, in 1927, the congregation moved to 42nd and Brooklyn Avenue in the University District. Needing more space to meet, these two churches, Oak Lake and University Tabernacle, joined forces in 1955 and began looking for a new location.

A site was found three blocks east of Aurora Avenue on North 122nd Street, on the south shore of Haller Lake. On this property in the 1920s, John and Lola Slipper, immigrants from England, had built an exact copy of the English Tudor-style brick home they left behind in coming to this country.

When the church acquired the property in 1956, two years after John Slipper's death, the house was used as a parsonage and construction of a new church building began on the portion of the property adjacent to 122nd Street.

Choosing a new name, North Seattle Alliance Church, the congregation moved in after completing the first section of the new building - a multi-purpose room, gym, and classroom complex - in 1959. The Slipper house serves today as the church office.

The Haller Lake neighborhood acquired its name in 1905 when the land began to be platted by Theodore Haller. Family patriarch Col. Grandville Haller had come to Seattle in the 1870s and built a large home on First Hill, so called because it was the first residential area overlooking downtown.

Like many other Seattle pioneers, the Haller family expanded their interests and acquired land in Seattle's North End. Haller Lake was a neighborhood of farmhouses and summer cabins, but had enough residents by 1921 to establish one of Seattle's first community clubs. The Haller Lake Community Club at 12579 Densmore is one of the few original community club buildings still in use in Seattle.

The Haller Lake neighborhood retained its rural character through the 1950s, but by the 1960s it was being impacted by the building of Northgate Mall, a few blocks south on 105th Street, and by the freeway to the east and expansion of businesses on Aurora Avenue to the west.

In the time of these social changes, the North Seattle Alliance Church began to reach out to the neighborhood and establish itself as a place of spiritual refreshment and renewal in the midst of increasing urban stress.

Today, the church, located at 2150 N. 122nd St., continues to emphasize the life-changing message of knowing God personally through Jesus Christ and showing His Love to its neighbors.