Parker Memorial AME Zion Church, 1280 N Broad St, Meriden, CT 06450, US

Ethel Graham, the charismatic founder and current pastor of New Gethsemane began the parish on a calling from God, she says. A Middletown resident and mother of five children, she said the Lord told her to go open a church in Meriden. In 198,9 she opened a tiny one-room place of worship on Colony Street. The church has long outgrown its first location, but remained on the street, now inhabiting a former Catholic Family Services facility -- a two-building complex with the chapel tucked behind a large, white meeting house. These days, the ministry reaches out to the community in the traditional form of charity work, but also has a prison ministry, a radio show on WSGG from 6-7 p.m. Tuesday, and a Meriden public access television show called the Total Touch from 5-6 p.m. Thursday.