Better Together
What’s the key to life as husband-wife church planters? Communication. Complementary gifts. And for Jon and Janna Ziegler, a shared passion for creating a community where everyone is welcome at the table, power is shared, each person brings their story and gifts, and all cultures are celebrated.
Sometimes Jon and Janna Ziegler have too much to talk about. There’s the grocery list. There’s their daughter, Julia, who just turned one. And there’s Gold Line Church, the parish they began planting six months ago in Highland Park—a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles with a strong need for racial and economic reconciliation due to ongoing gentrification. Gold Line Church is an endeavor that weaves together all their passion and experience to date.
“Jon and I are always communicating about church and family and how to parse those things out, and what is the best time and space to talk about all the different things that go on in our life,” Janna says. “We have a shared life both in and out of ministry, and a lot of things just flow together.”
The Zieglers—he outspoken and witty, she warm and thoughtful—share a passion for reconciling groups divided along ethnic and socio-economic lines. They both grew up Pentecostal in Southern Louisiana, steeped in the charismatic and evangelical parts of their faith. But both had an unspoken longing for the sacramental, for depth and connectedness to church practices throughout the ages.
“I always had a hunger for theology and to know what I believed, more than only experiencing it,” Janna says.
Janna sensed an early call to pastoral ministry, imagining herself as a foreign missionary. In college, however, a female campus pastor motivated her to get involved in campus ministry.
“That was a hugely formative time for me,” Janna says. “The campus ministry went into the dorms and started small groups—mini church planting in a dorm. I moved into a dorm and started discipling people. I felt like the dorm was my parish.”
During college, she met Jon, who was also involved in campus ministry and passionate about mission work. He spent three years as a missionary working with college students in Berlin, Germany. He was a visionary; she was gifted pastorally. They both loved to preach and teach. After they married, the couple decided to pursue graduate work together at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. They also served as English pastors at a Chinese church in Temple City.
But though others urged them to seek ordination in their childhood tradition of Assemblies of God, it didn’t seem like the perfect fit. In 2013, they attended a church planting conference and a friend connected them with Bishop Todd Hunter—and Anglicanism.
“Talking to Todd and having him understand my background in Pentecostal experience was so relieving for me,” Janna says. “I realized this is a place I can enter and not have it negate my Christian experience but bring it to fruition.”
From there, it was a discernment process with friends and family, affirming the couple’s mutual call to ordained Anglican ministry with ACNA and the Diocese of C4SO. As Jon and Janna considered how to serve the church, they felt drawn toward starting a work of reconciliation like the ones they had previously experienced. In their years of campus ministry, they had worked with an ethically diverse group on a very segregated campus. Upon first moving to L.A., they served at a church that was socio-economically and ethnically diverse. They knew diversity would be part of the church they envisioned, a space that would bring people together who might not have anything to do with each other.
“That was the kind of ministry that we were excited about. That was a big part of shaping the vision of our church,” Jon says.
Today, the fledgling church meets in the Zieglers’ home on Sunday nights to do Alpha, starting conversations with neighbors who are bored or burnt out on church. About 15 people share a meal on picnic tables on the back patio under twinkling strands of lights, holding babies, laughing and talking.
“We are reaching out to people who live around us,” Janna says. “It’s laying the groundwork, learning how we build community for our neighborhood.”
They are still figuring out exactly how their husband-wife team works. Planting a church as a couple—and as new parents—requires some trading off.
“Some weeks, I’m meeting with pastors to talk about the plant and communicate the vision, while Janna is home with the baby,” Jon says. “Sometimes Janna is leading a discipleship group at a coffee shop, and I’ve got the baby. There is a lot of juggling that happens on a somewhat rhythmic basis.”
Janna says their history and similar backgrounds enable them to work together in a life-giving capacity. “We move in and out of roles based on context,” she explains. “We make sure we encourage one another in the ways God has gifted us individually. But that can be really challenging because
Knowing their collective strengths and weaknesses, the Zieglers have invited others to fill the gaps. Several people have joined the team, including another ordinand, Jeff Still, who also has his MDiv from Fuller, and an intern, Stratton Glaze, who is finishing seminary this quarter. They all share preaching and teaching responsibilities.
“We’ve been doing Alpha so we divide up the Alpha talks,” Jon says. “Before Alpha, we were doing the evening office so we would share the reading of the liturgy or giving a meditation or homily.”
On June 7, Bishop Todd ordained the Zieglers to the diaconate at Holy Trinity Church in Costa Mesa. Side by side, they took their ordination vows, and side by side they will continue to negotiate the daily challenges of a nuclear and ecclesial family, of bringing God’s kingdom of reconciliation to their city. And they’ll talk about all of it at their kitchen table.
“There’s lots of encouragement knowing that someone on your team gets the struggle you’re in,” Janna says. “That’s a beautiful piece of church planting together that can sometimes be overlooked.”
Learn more at http://goldlinechurch.com.