Cultures blend at Zion Lutheran

Marshall Allen

GLENDALE -- The Armenian Loving Church Brotherhood, a Christian

congregation of about 70 people, was searching the city of Glendale for a

meeting place. Having been locked out of the church where they had been

gathering, they were homeless, until they knocked on the door of Zion

Lutheran Church.

“We were looking for a place to have our services and to have Holy

Communion,” said preacher Vartan Nadzharyan. “They accepted us and now

we’re a part of the Lutheran church.”

The Armenian members, who air their Armenian-language services on

Charter Communications Channel 17, may be separated from the mostly

non-Armenian congregation by barriers of language and culture, but the

two groups now worship as one every Sunday. Members of the Armenian group

are now members of Zion, with a unique mission to minister to the

Armenian community. The new Zion congregation celebrated the one-year

anniversary of its partnership on Sunday.

Chris Noonan, president of the congregation, said he knew immediately

the partnership was right. After leaders of the groups met, they knew

this would be more than a renter-rentee relationship.

“There were no different beliefs,” he said. “It was an eye opener for

everyone to realize. We’re of the same beliefs -- the same beliefs and

the same practices.”

Noonan and the other Zion leaders put their desires for individuality

aside when deciding to invite the Armenian group into their community, he

said.

“We all have a little prejudice in us, we’re human beings,” Noonan

said. “But we tried to sit down as a church board and say, ‘This house

does not belong to us, it’s God’s house.’ It’s our responsibility to open

the doors to everybody.”

After determining their priorities, Noonan said the decision to

welcome the Armenian group was obvious.

“You have cultural differences and language differences, but you have

two different groups and their hearts are the same,” Noonan said.

In addition to the change in the complexion of the congregation, the

worship services have changed in practice. Readings and programs are in

English and Armenian and children of both groups serve as acolytes.

The cross-cultural relationship has forced both groups to be flexible

and reach out to one another. At a recent picnic, “the Brotherhood was on

the left, and the Zion’s were on the right,” Noonan said.

The men mingled more than the women, he said, so they’ve done some

women’s events since the picnic. They’re also making a church directory

so people can put names with faces.

This weekend, the Brotherhood and Zion groups will get to know one

another better on a church retreat, where they will study the Bible and

pray together, Nadzharyan said. The groups will be united until “the

second coming of Christ,” he said.

It’s a relationship he said he enjoys because “we feel Christ’s love

in this church. They accept us as their own. We searched a lot of

churches to find a place and nowhere else did we get this warmth, this

love, like in the Lutheran church.”