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Easter Sunday at First United Methodist Church in Pasadena capped a Christian Holy Week that also saw Islam ic Friday prayers and a Jewish Passover celebration on the same campus.
This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, The First United Methodist Church has been in its ornate home in Pasadena for 101 years. For about 10 years, it has also been the home of a satellite location of the Islamic Center of Southern California, a large mosque in the downtown area.
And for a little over a year, the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center has also used space at the Colorado Boulevard church. The congregation lost their worship space to the Eaton Fire in January 2025. That means that First United Methodist Church in Pasadena is today the site of bar mitzvahs and Shabbat services, iftar meals and Friday prayers and Christian Holy Week services.
“I'm not aware of any other church in the country that has all three Abrahamic faiths worshiping under one roof. It's pretty phenomenal,” said Pastor Amy Aitken of the First United Methodist Church. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
The three congregations are using the church at a time when religion is an inescapable fact in conflicts around the world. Global tensions in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Iran are hitting close to home for communities with ties to the region. And in America, President Donald Trump is in a war of words with an unlikely combatant: the pope.
Pastor Amy Aitken sees First United Methodist as "an island of hope and grace in the middle of a world that is really divided.
"But Aitken views First United Methodist as “an island of hope and grace in the middle of a world that is really divided. ”“We're offering a place for people to gather, to worship, to connect, to be in community with one another,” Aitken said.
“We don't have to agree on everything, and we come from different worldviews, and that's OK. ” I recently attended Friday prayers, Shabbat and Easter Sunday service at First United Methodist — and found quite a bit more common ground than you might expect. California has cleared an initiative aiming to cancel Measure ULA and similar taxes across the state. But it might not be November’s only “mansion tax” measure.
LA homeless agency has ‘significant’ problem with inaccurate financial statements, auditors find The issues surround poor bookkeeping and accounting of taxpayer money at the agency — which spent over $800 million in public funds last fiscal year. People are streaming into a church hall on the First United Methodist campus through a side entrance.
Rizwan Bhatti, a doctor and volunteer who helps manage the mosque’s partnership with the church, pulls out colorful woven mats from a supply closet and lays them on the gray carpeted floor. Two large wooden crosses hang on the wall at the front of the room, but the orientation is about to change. As people take their places and lay out their thick prayer mats, they face the back of the room — east, toward Mecca.
“ Honestly, it's the second best place that you could pray in,” Farah Bhatti said about the church hall, “because there's a spiritual feeling here, no matter what faith it originates from. ” Aitken said the previous pastor at the church had lived in the Palestinian territories for about 10 years and had deep ties to the Muslim community.
When Rizwan Bhatti, who was connected with some of the parishioners, asked if the church had space for the Muslims to worship on Fridays, the pastor was determined to make it happen. Mohamad Saleh Kholaki, a dentist who also serves as the khatib or imam on some Fridays, said the congregation is “lucky enough to have this location.
” “It serves a lot of community members that live around this area and their businesses around this area instead of going to the downtown,” he said. And he said, the congregations haven’t had to compromise any aspects of their faiths. Kholaki said the Muslim congregation acknowledges Methodist Christian celebrations and that in turn is also reciprocated. After the call to prayer, Kholaki begins his sermon.
Being Muslim, he says, is all-encompassing. ”If we deal with others when they show us some aggression with kindness and we smile and wave it off, I think we'll be in a better shape,” he says.
“ The act of transformation of discipline from Islamic teachings into regular life is the key word here,” Kholaki continues. “We have to transform ourselves from the time where we are on the rug to pray into regular life, to transfer that attitude to public. ”After the sermon, the congregation faces Mecca and turns to the left and right.
“Assalamualaikum warahmatullah,” they say — may the peace of God be with you. The church parking lot looks very different on Friday evening compared with this afternoon. Gone are the people with hijabs and fezzes. Now, staffers from the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center pin kippahs to their heads and help transform a chapel at First United Methodist into a temporary Jewish prayer space.
They wheel a wooden ark from a storage room through the church’s courtyard, passing the Fellowship Hall where Muslims prayed earlier, into the chapel. A cross on a stand is put away. The organ is pushed to a corner. The ark is then set up in the front of the chapel and prayer scrolls laid out.
Soft dark blue fabric lines the ark, and it is opened during specific times of the service. A table is set up for the rabbi and cantor. Members of the band are setting up their instruments and sound system. Hanging above the altar, an ornate lamp emits a red glow.
The light in the chapel is called the perpetual light: For the Methodist congregation, it signifies God's everlasting presence with us. It reminds Lawrence Harris, a member of the congregation of the ner tamid, or eternal light, which is found in all synagogues. ”When you walk into any synagogue, there's the feeling of the light of God,” Harris said.
“And it's wonderful that they have here in the church the same symbolic light, whether it's the same God, it's just practiced slightly differently. ”Using the church as a temporary home for the temple, Harris said, has allowed him to reflect on the connections between Christianity and Judaism. And it has forced this congregation out of their cocoons. This reporting trip has forced me out of my cocoon too.
I am Muslim and wear a hijab. I’m also a radio reporter, carrying bulky recording equipment, a phone for pictures and backup sound and a notebook. Out of respect for Jewish practice, I put the tools of my trade away and become an observer. That allows me to really listen and understand the prayers being sung.
The rabbi and cantor begin by praising and thanking God. Then they ask for blessings for children and safety in this world. And because it is Passover, Rabbi Josh Ratner recounts the story of the Exodus, how Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea to the promised land.
When the service ends, the rabbi and cantor lead the congregation into a small room, which years ago served as the Muslim prayer space, for a simple Passover observance with matzo crackers and grape juice. And as the congregation begins to clear out, staffers restart the dance to put the ark, prayer books and tables back in storage. The cross is returned to its place and the chapel transforms back into a Christian worship space.
“Be flexible,” Cantor Ruth Berman Harris said. “ The strongest trees are the ones that bend. I think flexibility, assessing your reality and understanding that sometimes the journey is not as easy or as straightforward, but you know exactly where you are going. ” “Trying to focus on the good and not focus on the perfect,” said Rabbi Josh Ratner.
“There's so much good that we can do and bring and share even if it isn't necessarily ideal. I'd rather spend more of my time in the 80% zone than very little time trying to get to the 100% zone. ” ”Having a general sense of conviction of where you're at and where other groups are at and always sort of defaulting to try to find common ground, but also knowing sometimes there are certain red lines,” Ratner said.
“It's important to articulate them from a place of mutual understanding and respect. ” He added that it's important to hold on to your beliefs and values and have tough conversations, but have them from a place of respect and understanding versus insinuation. Some say it’s when you see three stars in the sky. Others say it can be planets and stars.
I chuckle a little inside: It’s a similar predicament for Muslims determining the end of Ramadan — some rely on calculations; others say you have to see the new moon. As the sky darkens on Saturday evening at a private ceremony at a home in Arcadia, the congregants of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center gather in a circle, link arms and sing “Blessed are You, God, our Lord, King of the universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.
” With the sabbath over, Stacey Miller, a member of the congregation, reflects on practicing Judaism in a Christian church. ”What I find so easy about going to a church, though I still call it my temple, is that the Jesus that is up at this beautiful First United Methodist church in Pasadena is very abstract,” she said.
“I don't feel like I'm looking at Jesus the Savior while I'm doing all my prayers with Moses. ”That’s the reality of being Jewish in America right now, said Stuart Miller, a physician and Stacey Miller’s husband. Rising antisemitism has led local chapters of the Jewish Federation to partner to offer security at temples and other community spaces across Southern California. The presence of armed guards at First United Methodist was unnerving at first, said Aitken, the Methodist pastor.
It also helped teach empathy, she said.9:30 a.m. The main sanctuary at First United Methodist is bathed in colorful light from huge stained glass windows. I watch from the balcony as parishioners come in wearing soft pastels on Christianity’s most important day. They are celebrating Easter after observing the solemn Maundy Thursday, which marks the Last Supper, and Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Aitken said I was welcome to use my recording equipment and phone, but wanting to immerse myself again, I place it all on the pew. The hymn “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” echoes through the church, and the joy people feel after the solemn week is palpable. In her sermon, Aitken draws out the similarities between Christ’s resurrection and the message of Passover.
The Exodus, she says, “is a story of liberation, and it is, of course, the story that is at the crux of Judaism — the sense that God comes, that God redeems, that God sees suffering, injustice and despair, and God intervenes to bring people freedom. ”“ No matter how dark the tombs of despair and sorrow are in the world, we follow a Risen Christ, one who comes to bring into the world a new story, a story of a world transformed by the power of love.
”As I sit in the pew reflecting on the weekend, I think back to Kholaki’s sermon at Friday Jummah prayers — about transforming ourselves not just “on this rug to pray,” but also out in the world. ”For Judaism I am very concerned with finding a path, a bridge between what we do when we are at synagogue and what we do when we leave the synagogue,” she told LAist in an interview.
Rabbi Josh Ratner added, ”How do we make it so it's not just empty words that we're saying, but for words to live by? ”“ We don't view this as anything heroic,” she said.
“We are blessed with incredible buildings and beautiful sacred spaces. We are grateful to be able to use them in ways that I don't think our founders quite imagined, but that are perfectly fitting with the way the church understands its mission now. ” You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit.
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