Livingwater -- Berkeley

I have no doubt that Mindy and I were the oldest people in the sanctuary. There have been Sunday worship services in the last year when we've been among the youngest in the building, and when that was the case we always felt like it was a little sad. Our guess of the average age at the service we attended this past Sunday would be about 21.  Being the oldest people at Livingwater in Berkeley was kind of cool.

Livingwater meets in the afternoons at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. According to the website the 3:30 pm service is the college service, which amused me a little when I entered the 1:30 pm service and noticed that most everyone looked like they were of college age. It might not be worth noting that we were among the few Caucasians in a congregation made up primarily of Asians, but I'm noting it anyway.

Studying the website a little more later I found that they encourage freshman students to attend the later service, and that the earlier afternoon service is primarily attended by upper class students and recent graduates. (There is also a morning worship service in Alameda that seems to have more age diversity, considering the fact that service includes a children's ministry.)

We were attending the service with Shaina and Stefan, currently students at U.C. Berkeley and formerly a regular part of Healdsburg Community Church. Our visiting theme this month is going to church with former youth from my former churches. Livingwater is where Stefan has been attending for the last four months. Shaina started at Berkeley in January and hasn't yet found a church, so this was a first visit for her, too.

The screen in the front of the sanctuary encouraged people to pray from 1:20 - 1:30 pm in preparation for the service, but most people seemed to be chatting amiably. Stefan warned us the church wouldn't start on time because they ran on Berkeley time. He told us all the classes at Berkeley started about ten minutes later than the scheduled time, allowing everyone to be there. Shaina concurred. But the service was only seven minutes late in starting, not ten.

The service opened with choruses -- not surprisingly all the music was choruses -- with a competent worship team with guys playing the instruments and a couple of young women singing. At one point during worship, the leader asked the congregation to raise their hands in praise, and about half of the congregation did.

One of the staff pastors gave the announcements, reading the three announcements off his phone. He introduced a mission team that will be going Cambodia and Thailand. Wearing matching shirts, they performed a dance to "Open the Eyes of My Heart" (whether in Khmer or Siamese, I have no idea). As a prayer was offered for the team, who will be leaving on Saturday, and the congregation was asked to reach their hands toward them in blessing. The offering was taken immediately after, with ushers giving plain white envelopes for those who wanted to contribute to the mission team along with or instead of to the general fund.

 The executive pastor of the Berkeley congregation gave the sermon (from the website I noticed five people on the staff, including a director of children's ministry in Alameda). The text of the sermon was I John 3: 10 - 16, in a series titled "God is Love." The pastor focused on the inconsistency of hate with the Christian life. He recalled working with an angry chef in a restaurant during his college years. The chef seemed to hate him for reasons beyond his comprehending. And he had to deal with feelings of hate for that man. He encouraged forgiveness and imitation of Christ's example of sacrifice. At the sermon's end, he encouraged people who had a hard time forgiving to come forward to pray, and a few people did.

Mindy and I spent time on the U. C. Berkeley campus prior to meeting with Shaina and Stefan. We saw a number of signs for Christian fellowships, but one hears of a great deal of hostility toward the doctrine and values of the Christian faith in classes and in the environment of schools in the U.C. system. It was good to be with a couple of Berkeley students we knew (and a lot of students we didn't know) honoring Christ. It's almost enough to make old people like us invite kids onto our lawn.

Stats:

Service Length: 1 hour 29 minutes        

Sermon Length: 41 minutes

Visitor Treatment: Greeting time early in the service, visitors encouraged to fill out cards available from designated people near the doors of the sanctuary

Our Rough Count: 150

Probable Ushers' Count: 175

Snacks: none that we saw

Songs: Your Love Never Fails, His Glory Appears, Christ is Enough, At the Cross

Miles to place: 63

Total California Miles: 5,542

-- Dean

Visits with old youth group students -- Shaina and Stefan

Shaina Meier happens to be my archnemesis. A few years ago we both decided we were lacking an archnemesis in our lives. My problem, though, is that she is a perfectly delightful person. I enjoyed her presence at youth group and events when I was doing youth ministry at Healdsburg Community Church, and she also did wonderful work in the church nursery and on the worship team. A reasonable assessment of Shaina's character would more likely rank her as a hero, perhaps a Super Hero; which would make me a Super Villain. But I try not to think about it.

Stefan Masselink also attended Healdsburg Community Church. For the last couple of his high school years, Stefan and I got together on an irregular basis for Bible study or just to talk. Mindy taught both Shaina and Stefan for awhile, during their younger years, in Sunday School.

 

Both Stefan and Shaina are attending U. C. Berkeley, and both were willing to get together with us for lunch to discuss their church experiences. Afterwards, we went to church together at Livingwater Church in Berkeley.

Shaina's first church memories were from attending services with her father and brother at a Seventh Day Adventist Church. She remembers potlucks and being rather disappointed with vegetarian hot dogs. But she appreciated the people, and many of the folks from that church are still family friends.

Shaina and her family moved to Healdsburg Community Church when she was eight or nine, and at the new church she also appreciated the people. There were plenty of older people who took grandparent duty, and since she had no grandparents living close by this was appreciated.

Stefan also said he appreciated the older folks who loved the kids in the church and remembered him week to week. His other memory of a church from childhood was the house church his family attended in Italy when they would go for long summer visits. The sermons there, he said, were a little long and dry for a kid, but he appreciated and continues to appreciate the people.

Shaina was quite enthusiastic when she discussed her love of Vacation Bible School at Healdsburg Community Church, both as an attendee and a leader. As a kid she thought the VBS decorations were magical, and as she grew older she felt no reason to change her opinion. She attributes those VBS experiences to contributing to her continuing love for working with children.

Shaina just began at Berkeley in January and hasn't yet found a church home there.

Stefan has been attending Livingwater, the church we attended together, for four months. Prior to that, in his freshman year and the first half of his sophomore year, he had a rather challenging church experience. At that church, he initially found the teaching spoke to his heart. It was a new experience worshiping with students his age, many already his friends. People in the church were divided into small groups who met several times a week for several hours for Bible study, worship and social times. After awhile, though, he began to feel at odds with teaching in the church. They told him it wasn't Biblical to be a romantic relationship. Their teaching about selfishness was that you shouldn't have fancy possessions like a smart phone or a vehicle that couldn't be used for ministry (like a van that could be used to take people to church).

The most challenging teaching about ministry, for Stefan, was that it was selfish to use time studying for classes that could be used for, say, evangelism. Perhaps it would even be best to quit school to concentrate on ministry for the church. This was at odds with Stefan's desire to excel in his school work in pre-med.* Though Stefan still respects many people in that church, he knew it wasn't God's place for him.

Students who have grown up going to their family's church face a challenge when they move off to college. It's easy to neglect church altogether. There are some unhealthy churches that will take in students that are looking for the comfort of a caring church home. But I'm confident that God will continue to work in the already impressive lives of Shaina and Stefan and will continue to use them in His Church.

-- Dean

*Not part of our conversation, but what Stefan said about the church encouraging neglect of studies reminded me of a story Billy Graham used to tell. A seminarian asked him if he should be wasting time in studies when he could be out serving people. Graham told him that if there were many trees to chop down in the forest, it was worth taking time to sharpen an axe.