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Rev. Movses B. Janbazian Awarded the
Mesrob Mashdotz Medallion Posthumously
The Armenian American community was shocked and saddened
by the sudden death of Rev. Movses B. Janbazian, Executive
Director of the Armenian Missionary Association of America
(AMAA).
His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of
Ciicia, immediately offered his condolences on this
great loss and subse-quently announced the posthumous
award-ing of the Mesrob Mashdotz Medallion to Rev. Janbazian.
This is first time that an Armenian evangelical clergyman
has been honored with this important award.
The presentation was made on Saturday. October 21, during
the annual meeting of the Armenian Missionary Association
of America in Pararnus, New Jersey. The award was presented
by V. Rev. Fr. Anoushavan Tanielian on behalf of the
Prelate, Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan. It was accepted
by the AMAA President, Andrew Torigian on behalf of
the Janbazian family and the AMAA.
The encyclical from Aram Vehapar accompanying the award
noted the dedi-cated service that Rev. Janbazian has
per-formed for the Armenian community worldwide.
His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan noted that Rev. Janbazian
was a good friend of the Prelacy and worked hand in
hand with the Armenian Apostolic Church for the advancement
and betterment of the Armenian notion.
The Glory of God in Our Midst
By
Rev. Jirair M. Sogomian
The Fundamental Christian doctrine that Christmas proclaims
to the world is the Incarnation - God entering into
human life and history in the person of the Christ.
The vast majority of the Christian world celebrates
this event from its historical perspective, as a pivotal
event that happened some 2000 years ago, once and for
all, when God became part of human life in all its facets
and implications, including human suffering and death!
The eternal Word became flesh and lived among us full
of grace and truth - the defining mystery of the Christian
faith and life, the mystery of the meeting of two distinct
spheres of existence, the human and the divine! As humans,
when we face this central Christian mystery, all we
can do is bow and adore the One who loved us so much
that He emptied himself of all his divine prerogatives
in order to fully identify himself with us, and in that
ultimate identification, even unto death, gives us the
hope of eternal life through his resurrection!
However,
what we overlook in our joyful and often noisy and ostentatious
celebration of historical Christmas, is that the Incarnation
also makes it possible for us to enter into the life
of God, even now, as he comes to dwell within us in
his Spirit. For the Christ child grew to adulthood,
and following his death and resurrection breathed upon
his followers his Spirit to be the permanent divine
presence within us. As such the Incarnation becomes
a preeminently contemporary event that continues to
happen every time we choose to participate in the divine
life Christ has made possible for us! Therefore, to
celebrate Christmas is not merely to affirm a historical
Christian doctrine, but it is to recognize the glory
of God in our midst and within ourselves in the person
and Spirit of the Christ! It means to embrace a whole
new way of life that God in Christ makes possible for
us!
Because
the Word has become flesh and dwells among us and within
us in all our human frailty and brokenness, we are now
empowered to imitate Christ. As Jesus emptied himself,
we too are called to empty ourselves of all pride and
pretension, and humbling ourselves with Christ in sacrificial
service, to identify ourselves with the least of Christıs
brothers and sisters in whom the Incarnate Christ meets
us! If the incarnation is the way God speaks his infinite
love and compassion to us, it must also be the way we
speak to others of Godıs love and compassion by giving
flesh and blood to Christıs love within us in concrete
acts of justice and mercy to those deprived of Godıs
presence in their lives!
Christmas gives us an opportunity to think of where
exactly God becomes flesh in our human condition...where
and how is God incarnate in human reality? As we study
the Gospels, it becomes clear to us what the Incarnate
Christ is all about. We find him preaching the gospel
of salvation and teaching about the kingdom of God.
We find him feeding the hungry, healing the sick, washing
his disciplesı feet, weeping with those who mourn and
laughing with those who celebrate, eating and resting,
enjoying a hearty meal and spending quiet time in prayer.
We find him touching and breaking bread with the unclean
without worrying about the legal and ceremonial implications
of his acts of mercy. We find him on mountaintops reflecting
Godıs glory and in the deep valleys of human despair
wondering how long it will take him to make us see the
light, to make us see God in Him and in us!
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| Worship
updated
January 8, 2001 |
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U.A.C.C.
Initiates Self-Profile
As AEUNA churches seek to meet the needs of their
ever--changing congregations, creating and implementing a meth-odology
to determine those needs becomes a threshold issue. In 1998,
the United Armenian Congregational Church (UACC) of Los Angeles
initiated the process of "finding out who we are" (as current
UACC Moderator Louis Kurkjian put it) by conducting a survey
of its congregation.
UACCıs Long Range Planning Committee had proposed a survey to
gather infor-mation regarding the congregationıs demographics
and range of opinions on relevant topics affecting the churchıs
future. The project took root in early 2000 when Kurkjian commissioned
UACCıs newly elected clerk Anne Bogosian to move the survey
beyond the incipient stage. Initially, Bogosian appointed a
survey committee, whose first task was to pro-pose a slate of
questions for approval by the Executive Committee of the church.
To foster discussion within the committee, Bogosian and her
husband David created a draft of the questionnaire. The committee
reviewed and revised the ques-tionnaire; an appeal was also
made to all other church organizations for further input. Final
review and approval came from the Executive Committee. An instructive
note to those considering future surveys was that while one
might expect that questions would be eliminated during this
process, the tendency instead was for people to add questions
exploring their particular areas of interest, with the final
survey reaching 16 pages.
The document was organized in four sections:
(1) Directory Information, which included basics such as name,
address, and phone number;
(2) Demographics, which focused on areas such as age, lan-guage
skills, and church involvement;
(3) Opinion Poll and
(4) Youth section, which attempted to quantify participation
in, and asked parents to rate, the various youth programs.
The most controversial section of the survey was the Opinion
Poll. Questions dealt with issues such as dancing and/or drinking
at church functions, style of worship and music, size of the
church staff and language used in church services.
According to both Bogosian and Kurkjian, the most challenging
aspect of the project was the delivery and collection of the
surveys. The document was mailed to church members, non-members
who have made financial contributions, and those who regularly
receive the church newsletter. Additionally, surveys were available
at the church for any others to pick up. The cost of generating,
copying and mailing the 800 documents came to approximately
$2,000.
One of the main goals of the project was to "gather a reasonable
representation of input from different marital and cultural
situations," Kurkjian said. To achieve that goal, the Survey
Committee faced two significant obstacles: (1) apathy and (2)
concerns about the confidentiality of the contents of the individual
surveys. To overcome the first hurdle, announcements concerning
the project were made from the pulpit and included in the weekly
church bulletin and monthly newsletter. Bogosian stated that
the most important step in the process was direct contact with
the leaders of church organizations to solicit their help to
encourage participation. The college and young adult groups
were the least responsive segment of the congregation, requiring
repeated contact and encouragement from church staff, board
and survey committee members to ensure adequate representation
of their opinions in the process.
Secondly, members of the congregation voiced concerns about
the confidentiality of the completed questionnaires, stating
that they might be less forthright in their responses for fear
that church leadership might be notified of criticism from individual
respondents. To safeguard the confidentiality of responses,
results from the opinion poll section are being tabulated exclusively
in a statistical fashion, so that the responses of any particular
individual cannot be identified. Further, Bogosian contends,
"Our questionnaire was very professionally done, and there were
no ques-tions that were invasive or left individuals open to
personal criticisms. The opinion poll questions concentrated
on church programs and topics, not personalities."
As
of October, nearly 300 survey forms have been returned, a number
roughly comparable with UACCıs average weekly attendance which
insures a statistically significant sample. Tabulation of the
results is proceeding surely but slowly, in large part because
only Bogosian has access to the surveys in order to protect confidentiality.
It will take nearly a year from the time the process was begun
for the entire project to be completed, including presentation
of the results. However, the church has already begun reaping
the benefits of these efforts, as the demographic information
has proven valuable in recruiting Sunday School teachers, board
members, and other volunteers.
Note: Paul Kassahian, a lifelong UACC member, is an attorney living
in Pasa-dena, California. After several personal reminders, he
has completed and turned in his survey form.
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