The gold-plated dome of the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring gleams in the afternoon sun. Next door, the bright Mediterranean-blue roof and golden-topped spires of the St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church shine in sharp religious and architectural contrast. Beside it are the simple white buildings of the Heritage Christian Church.
These three religious institutions are among nearly two dozen lining a busy stretch of New Hampshire Avenue, forming a microcosm of the diverse religious landscape of Montgomery County.
Spiritual leader Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo speaks at Kunzang Palyul Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Poolesville.
(Hyosub Shin For The Washington Post)
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From parishioners who attend the so-called mega-churches to the members of small start-up congregations of immigrants that rent space in schools and elsewhere, the diversity of the county's faithful is growing, reflecting the changing demographics of the population.
"People bring their own religion with them, just like our forefathers brought theirs with them," said Patricia Andersen, librarian at the Montgomery County Historical Society's Jane C. Sween Library in Rockville.
Several hundred congregations representing dozens of denominations call the county home. Montgomery County has the largest concentration of Jews in the Washington area, and in 2000 it became the site of the first Roman Catholic church in the United States built in a Vietnamese design when Our Lady of Vietnam Roman Catholic Church opened in Silver Spring.
The world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is in Silver Spring, and the white spires of the Mormon Temple in Kensington are a familiar landmark to drivers along the Beltway.
"What we're seeing in the United States and including Montgomery County that's most interesting to me is the growth in the Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic religions in this area," said the Rev. Roger Fritts of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, who has worked with county groups and officials on zoning issues concerning religious organizations.
Over the past decade, increasing development in upper Montgomery County also has attracted a steadily growing number of religious institutions, in some cases affecting the size of congregations in other areas.
The Muslim Community Center, for example, has seen its membership decrease with the opening of other centers in the Gaithersburg and Rockville area. "Even though we are reducing in size, more mosques and centers are being built," said Siddiq Ismail, the center's office administrator.
The center, which opened in 1981, draws families from the Washington area for prayers, classes in the Koran and Arabic, and other services. "We have good support for the weekend school from the Indian and African community who speak Arabic," Ismail said.
Although the center recently added a second Friday prayer session to alleviate crowding during its 12:30 p.m. session, the decrease in membership means that officials are grappling with how to fill their underused multimillion-dollar facility, Ismail said.
"We have a diverse community up here, and we try to tap into that as well" for new ideas, he said.
The growing diversity among county worshipers is driving all kinds of change -- from the way some congregations worship to shifts in the demographics of membership. Some congregations offer regular services in Spanish and other languages and may rent their buildings to smaller congregations to use for services.
In his 18 years at Christ the Servant Lutheran Church in Gaithersburg, the Rev. Peter Bastien has watched his formerly all-white congregation change into one with a membership that's about 20 percent black, mostly Liberian.
The transition has been accepted by longtime parishioners and has resulted in "more lively" services, said Bastien, chairman of the Gaithersburg Clergy Conference, an informal group of local clergy.
"Lutherans are stodgy Europeans who are very formal," Bastien said. "Africans are not. We'll find ourselves with a service with drums."
The church also has received calls from two Hispanic Pentecostal congregations and one African church looking for space. One Hispanic group did rent briefly; as soon as it left, the church received a call from another congregation wanting the space, he said.
"We get calls regularly from small, immigrant-type people looking for a place to get their church started," Bastien said.
At Kunzang Palyul Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Poolesville, members similarly have witnessed growing diversity in those who visit the temple to pray, participate in programs or walk the trails on its 72 acres.
The core group of American-born Buddhists that started the temple has changed and grown over the years to include more Asian members, said spokeswoman and temple member Maura Daly. The temple's database lists 1,900 members.
"We are a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists from all over the Washington area" as well as New York and Pennsylvania, she said.
As non-Christian faiths continue to gain prominence in the county, officials with several local service organizations composed of religious institutions say they are trying to broaden their outreach.
Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Gaithersburg Clergy Conference was essentially a Christian ecumenical group. But after the attacks, the group invited local Buddhists, Muslims and members of the Baha'i faith to participate, Bastien said.
"We immediately recognized that there would be a lot of issues within the Christian community and Islamic community," he said. "It's not enough to reach out to Muslim people. Our country is generally interfaith. No longer is it just Christians with a smattering of others."
The Silver Spring Interfaith Housing Coalition has also begun reaching out to Buddhist and Muslim congregations to add to its membership of 24 mostly Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran and Jewish congregations in the Silver Spring-Wheaton area, said Fred Hoefner, president of the board of directors.
"The primary motivation is to get more people involved in our ministry and our mission," he said. "A lot of other benefits emerge. It's a great opportunity to really get to know people when you're rolling up your sleeves and doing things together."
The Community Ministry of Montgomery County has seen membership in its interfaith coalition grow from 98 congregations in 1999 to 129 this year, representing such diverse faiths as Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christian Scientists and Mormons, said executive director Rebecca Wagner.
"We've had significant growth in the last few years," said Wagner of the organization, which relies on donations and volunteers from member congregations to provide social services for residents in need.
"The broader the diversity of the faith community, the more work that we can get done," she said. "We strive to get a picture that looks like Montgomery County. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't."
