The Berkeley Mission -- Part 1

Last week I arrived home from a six-day experimental missions trip.  In partnership with the student ministries of Rock Hills Church, we took a group of 24 high schoolers, college students and adult staff to Berkeley, California. 

Our goal:  to expose Christian young people to secular thought in order to help them cultivate a Christian worldview.  Rather than isolate students in a "Christian ghetto," we want to innoculate them from false views.  What better place than Berkeley to give them a taste of the people that are waiting for them once they leave the safety of a Christian home, church or youth group. 

Since I was not aware of anyone else who had done a trip like this, I had to start from scratch in terms of creating an itinerary.  By the time we left for Berkeley we had a packed schedule.  Here is a sampling of what we did: 

• Friday the 17th:  We hooked up with Intervarsity's Cal Christian Fellowship and joined them for their weekly meeting.  After worship and teaching we sat down with a couple of Cal students who are engaging the campus at an apologetic level, one student through an IDEA club and the other through monthly gatherings to discuss tough questions.  This was an opportunity to show our students that there are courageous believers making a difference even in a hostile enviroment like Berkeley. 
• Saturday the 18th:  During the morning, Mark Thomas of the Atheists of the Silicon Valley met with our group and presented his arguments against theism and for atheism.  In the afternoon Josiah Greene, from the Berkeley club SANE (Students for A Non-religious Ethos), did the same.
• Sunday the 19th:  After some down time at the famous Fisherman's Wharf, we joined up with Berkeley's campus group Fiat Lux for some lively, yet very respectful, discussion with both Christians and non-Christians regarding intellectual objections to Christianity. 
• Monday the 20th:  In the morning, students worked on apologetic presentations they were assigned, which they delivered to the group that evening.  In between, David Fitzgerald of the San Francisco Atheists and Larry Hicok of the East Bay Atheists jointly presented their arguments against Christianity in particular and for atheism, followed by a lively time of Q & A.
• Tuesday the 21st:  In the morning we visited the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley where Reverend Bill Hamilton-Holway discussed the distinctive beliefs of Unitarian Universalists.  Afterward, we spent some time doing surveys and engaging in conversations on the campus of U.C. Berkeley.  We spent the afternoon at the home of Phillip E. Johnson as he discussed Intelligent Design with our students (for me, this was the highlight of the trip). 
• Wednesday the 22nd:  We departed early and returned to Southern California.

It was an incredible trip and I hope to be able to do this with other youth groups, as well.  Over the next several days I will be unpacking my reflections on the trip.

Comments

[Robert Casteline]

Absolutely OT: the webmaster must set links to open in a new window! This infinite regress which happens when clicking links in the blog starts to have an M.C. Escher type of feel to it.

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Thanks.

[Robert Casteline]

O.k., now that my rant is over: Brett, this is fantastic. I've recently been given greater teaching responsibilities at my church and I am going to "totally bite your style" (as the yutes ("What's a yute?") say) and try to arrange something like this in NYC. Completly brilliant and balanced.

Please give more info on what you did with the students before hand (e.g., did you prep them in any way for the atheists or see what would happen "out of the box"?), did you do debriefings following presentations?

Thank you so much for this.

[Mike]

Excellent idea! Looking forward to reading more about the trip.

[Christopher Taylor]

I wonder if the Unitarian Universalist noted that they aren't Christian and reject most of orthodox Christianity.

[Melissa]

This sounds great, maybe you could (in the future) set up a summer "University" of sorts where parents from tiny towns (such as the middle of nowhere in Kansas)can send their kids the summer before they go off to college since those kinds of resources would be difficult to find where I live. I think I've read of a similar school where they are taught apologetics but not with that much face-to-face contact with the non-Christian ideas.

[Sam]

What a great idea!

[Karen]

Brett, is there any way someone who is NOT part of one of the youth groups participating in this kind of activity could have an opportunity to prepare for and undertake such a trip? My son's youth leader doesn't seem interested in this kind of approach.