Meet Our Members

Joe & Linda Lovas

Linda and Joe Lovas joined Zion Lutheran Church in 1971 when their oldest son was almost a year old.  They had just purchased a new home in Clinton Town and moved from their North Plainfield apartment.  In 1969, they were married by Pastor Roy Milner at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Dunellen, NJ. They are both lifelong NJ residents.  Linda was born in Jersey City and Joe’s family is from Clifton.

They have two sons, Jeffrey and Gregory who attended Sunday School and were confirmed at Zion.   Both boys were active in the Youth Group and both attended national events with Pastor Summer. They also were faithful attendees of Pastor Summer’s Rehoboth Beach retreats.  In 2000, Pastor Summer married Jeffrey and his wife Jodie and in 2001 he married Gregory and his wife Amy. Both affairs were lovely and made very special because Pastor Summer was there to officiate.  They have four fabulous teenage grandchildren, Julia, Jack, Jessica and Megan.  Three were baptized by Pastor Summer. They all attended and volunteered at Vacation Bible School for many years

Linda and Joe are both retired.  Joe retired in 2000 from the automobile business and headed to the local golf courses for some fun.  When Linda retired in 2011 from The Chubb Corporation, she had just finished 25 years of service. She worked as Senior Executive Assistant to the Chairman and CEO for 23 of those years.  It was an exciting and challenging position which she thoroughly enjoyed but it was time for a new chapter.

After retirement, Linda and Joe began to travel extensively.  They started with Sweden, Norway and Denmark.  It was something they had talked about for years.  Then they got the bug and continued on to Singapore, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, Hawaii, Germany, Italy, France, Budapest, Amsterdam, the Greek Islands and more.  It’s one of their favorite things to do together.  Exploring all the new and exciting places they visit and meeting lots of interesting people is the best part.

Over the years, Linda and Joe have been active in many areas at Zion.  Linda has served on Council many times and has been Vice President twice.  She has also been Secretary to the Council, a Sunday School teacher, worked with Vacation Bible School, Family Promise and Faith Kitchen in Dover.  They both enjoy all the social activities of the church and consider many members to be like family.

When Linda and Joe hear people say “Come Home to Zion” they often think, we never left!!!!  How wonderful is that?

Larry & Arlene Martin

Hi, we are Arlene and Larry Martin.  Arlene is a true “Jersey girl” and a lifetime Lutheran.  Larry was born in West Virginia and came to NJ via Baltimore. We met while working for a German pharmaceutical company in Bridgewater and were able to exchange homes and jobs with a German colleague.  Larry was a medicinal chemist and Arlene was Production and Inventory Control Manager.  We are both retired now and enjoy traveling with friends and family. We have two children—Liz who lives in Yorktown, Virginia with her husband and nine-year-old son and Larry who lives in Tewksbury with his wife and two children.  Those of you who go to the 11 AM service know our three-year-old granddaughter, Emma, who loves “her” pastor, “her” choir, and “her” church.

We joined Zion the same Sunday that Mark and Bonnie Summer joined.  Both our children were confirmed by Pastor Summer and enjoyed many weeks in Rehoboth with the youth group.  Arlene has been on council, taught Vacation Bible School and substituted in the Sunday School.  She was also there for the first guests from Interfaith Hospitality Network (now Family Promise) and was amazed that one of the children went to school with her daughter.  It was quite a shock to realize we do have homeless in Hunterdon County.  The second set of guests helped Arlene assemble gingerbread houses for Advent Parish Night and she will be eternally grateful to them.  Twenty gingerbread houses was a challenge but they pitched in and we had a great time.

In the past 30+ years, Zion has been there for us through strokes, cancer and those wonderful teenage years.  It was a blessing to have a minister who had a son my kids age.  There were some sermons that I swore Mark must have been a fly on the wall in our house it was so relevant to our lives.  I had a neighbor who once remarked on how caring our church was when she saw people delivering food when I came home from the hospital.  She had gone through a triple bypass and not one person from her church even called to see how she was doing.

We have many fond memories of Zion and the people that make up the congregation and feel blessed to have known all of you.