“This place was a nightclub, and they were dancing and getting down with the devil!” Pastor Ann Stratton preached as she stood last month before her congregants in the gutted former night spot-turned-sanctuary on Leonard Street. “But we can dance and get down with Jesus!”

With that, the room exploded with cheers and hallelujahs. Indeed, there would be dancing in the aisles on this, the first Sunday-morning service for Faith Exchange, a spirited evangelical Christian congregation that moved last month to the sprawling two floors of the former club at 95 Leonard Street in Tribeca.

Nearby residents knew that address as Deco (aka Peppers), with its raucous crowds that spilled into the streets at 3 and 4 a.m. most weekend mornings, and the occasional stabbings and shootings that punctuated the nights.

Following pressure from the police, Community Board 1 and the landlord, the club moved out in April. Now that the congregation of some 200 are renters there, they have ambitious plans for the 7,000 square feet of raw space, including a finished sanctuary, Sunday school and teen rooms, a sound booth, and offices. Nomads since their meeting place at 90 West Street, across from the World Trade Center, was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, the church is what its leaders, Pastors Ann and Dan Stratton, call “a work in progress.”

“We can only do it as the money comes in,” says Ann, who periodically conducts healing sessions with a laying on of hands.

The church traces its beginnings to the Mercantile Exchange at the World Trade Center in the early 1990s, where Dan Stratton, a former trader, conducted bible study classes after work. Following the loss of their space at 90 West Street, the couple were determined to preach in Lower Manhattan.

Before their recent move to Leonard Street, they gathered in the tight quarters of their offices on lower Broadway and, for special services, in a hotel. But they are no stranger to Tribeca. Four years ago they rented a ground-floor space at Greenwich and Vestry Streets, where their rousing Sunday-morning gospel singing, backed by electric guitar, keyboard and drums, was not well received by neighbors. And the green awning they hung above the entrance to the building, located in Tribeca’s historic district, brought swift action from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“At the other space we were learning,” said Dan. “And we caught so much grief right off the bat that it was like, Oh, my gosh.”

The Strattons say they are confident that noise will be no problem during the two hours each Sunday morning that they hold services. But if need be, they will add soundproofing.

“We’re pretty well isolated,” said Ann, “so it’s in our favor, praise God.”

More favorable still is what they are not: a club.

“I’m glad to hear the neighborhood is going to be more welcoming this time,” said Rosa Alicea, a longtime member of the congregation. “That’s going to be easier for us to be a blessing to them.”