All Soul's - Berkeley

On Sunday I decided that I would head to All Soul's Berkeley.  I was going there for two reasons, first because it is what I would call the "neighborhood church," in that it is only a few blocks away from campus and also because a CDSP student was preaching that morning.  I am currently in the process of checking out the churches in Berkeley and so far I have had mixed impressions.  I have like services, preaching, and the communities at each of them but they seem all too familiar and probably will not work as a potential field ed site.

 The outside of All Soul's

All Soul's is a ten minute walk away from campus, which again is a good thing because I didn't have to get up early.  Again, Maura decided that the she wanted to go to church and came with me.  When we got there I was surprised to see a strong connection to CDSP.  As soon as we walked into the foyer, on the wall were pictures of the various clergy and administration staff of the parish.  Three CDSP professors serve as associates in this parish.  One CDSP student, Lauren, serves as a deacon once a month.  They have two CDSP seminarians in their parish and last but not least several professors are members of the parish, including my history professor, Dan.  On a side note, talk about small world, Dan received his doctorate from Boston College during the mid to late 90's and visited St. John's several times around 1995-1996 when Skip was rector.  I don't remember him being there but who knows...small world.

The church itself was pretty large and I was surprised because it doesn't look that way from the outside.  As we found a pew the choir was finishing up rehearsing the Irish Blessing, another piece I am familiar with from my choir days.  The finished and quickly disappeared while the pews began to fill up.  It was a very diverse community that was gathering that morning.  I saw Dan and his family, especially his young son Greg who likes to run up to me and give me a good whack.  We met during the retreat and I am now referred to as the "other Red Sox fan."  Dan is a huge fan of the Sox so it is not surprising that Greg would be a fan as well.  I also noticed a few students from PSR, the Pacific School of Religion, which is one of the nine schools of the GTU.  In fact I was a little curious why they were there.  Was it because they really liked the Episcopal services or were they required to check out different types of services as part of their education?  I didn't get the opportunity to ask so that will remain unanswered.

 Inside the church

The service was straight forward, though they had a heavy emphasis on music.  I heard that at least once a month there is a blue grass band that plays during the service.  Rhian preached her sermon, which was pretty good, and they even had a children's homily.  Though the services there are fairly long, it really didn't feel that way.  We were out of there by 11:30 and on our way back to the dorms.  This of course worked since it gave me plenty of time to get something together before the Patriots kicked off at 1:00.  I was hoping that I would get tickets to the game and finally see the Pats play since they were in Oakland, but alas it will have to wait another year.

I don't think that All Soul's will work for a field ed site.  I like the music, the community, and their space but it seems all too familiar still.  I have yet to find something that will challenge my church experiences so far.  The other reason I don't think it will fit is because of the close connections to CDSP.  For me it would be nice to be removed from the influence of CDSP and go somewhere our professors do not attend.  While it would be nice to get feedback from the professors on sermons that will be preached but I think it would be better to be out someplace on my own.  After I am done visiting all of the churches in Berkeley I think I am going to head to Oakland.  Everyone talks about parishes in Berkeley and SF, but I haven't met anyone who is or has done their field ed in Oakland.  We will see if that is a good idea.

 Looking down the street with the Bay in the background