The Newman Center where I grew up is a small brick building that's all sunshine and hippies with guitars. I loved it, the one time I went. I hoped that Berkeley's would be the same. It's not; it's a very large building with a gorgeous altar sculpted to look like a tree trunk, and great decoration in general, lots of good groups and activities (Taize, the youth group, the LGBT fellowship, etc.), great liberal/radical sermons, and a wonderful library. Problem is, it's so big that after going there for a year and doing three extracurricular things I only knew one person - the awesome semi-homeless woman who hangs out outside making mandalas out of flower petals. I think that when someone can go to a church regularly for a year and not know anyone, there's something wrong.
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