Our Story

 

1. CHURCH IN A CALLING

In 2007, Earl and Janet Creps were minding their own business in Springfield, Missouri where Earl was teaching at the graduate school where Jan was completing here doctorate.

The Creps visited Berkeley at the request of a friend and were immediately captivated by the city. Berkeley, they concluded, is the most creative city in the world. From this premise, they began to ask a question: what would happen if the people who create the future did so out of a relationship with their Creator?

Sociologists describe 50% of Berkeley’s population as “trend setters.” Our city pioneered the Independent Living movement, housing desegregation, advanced training for police officers, and so many other things that students of its history say, “As Berkeley goes, so goes the nation.”

Earl and Janet felt God leading them to start a new church for creatives in Berkeley. So they quit their careers, sold their dream house, and moved into a basement from which they traveled to raise the funds needed to live here.

360church exists because we believe that connecting creatives with their Creator through faith in Jesus affords both eternal life and the potential to change the world.

But until something is done about a calling, it’s just an idea.

 

2. CHURCH IN A HOUSE

So Earl and Janet moved to Berkeley. Arriving alone in December 2008, they moved into an abandoned, foreclosed pink stucco house in the South Berkeley neighborhood.

Immediately they started working on cleaning up the appearance of their 85-year old home, with the help of several teams who visited from other churches.

Before the church even had a name, the first prayer meeting was held in the Creps’ living room in January 2009 with two friends visiting from Arizona. Easter of 2009 was celebrated in an outdoor service on the Cal campus with an attendance of 3: Earl, Janet and one visitor: a finch.

Dinner meetings began at the Creps’ later that year, first on Friday then on Thursday nights. These events featured a huge comfort food meal (e.g., chicken and dumplings), followed by singing, Bible teaching, prayer, and dessert.

The group grew and was a lot of fun, and became “church in a house.” Natasha Dagys joined Earl and Jan as the first member of the leadership team.

Marc & Semra Madrigal arrived during this season to begin working on a new Chi Alpha fellowship at Cal, with John Sillcox joining them just before the group launched in the fall semester of 2010.

We are asked often about the name of our church. Friends visiting our church in a house from Ireland suggested “360church.” We had no idea what it meant, but we liked the name and it stuck.

Church in a house gave us a chance to evaluate whether church in a calling would actually function in Berkeley. When it did, we were ready for the next step.

 

3. CHURCH IN A BAG

So we decided to take our meetings public on Sundays.

On Easter 2010 we started Sunday morning services in the University Room of the Hotel Durant (2600 Durant Ave) just a block from Cal.

Eight of us gathered around one round table in this small conference room, which featured an exterior entrance and a wall of windows looking out on Durant Avenue (making fire engine sirens just one pane of glass away).

The Hotel Durant was our good and constant friend throughout this season, making it possible to meet on Sundays in a great location.

The size of the group varied each week. Sometimes we had instrumental music, but at first we often sang acapella from sheets of paper with printed song lyrics. But the shift to a public venue opened the way for people from the community who were exploring faith to begin visiting 360church.

We called it “church in a bag” because we had so little that everything we needed to hold a service fit into one duffel bag at first. Later we had to call it “church in two bags,” then “church in three bags,” etc.

The church in a bag season was about evaluating whether our church in a house ideas could survive in a public setting. When they did, we were ready for another change.

 

4. CHURCH IN A CAR

We decided to move from the University Room to the California Room in the Hotel Durant late in 2010.

While moving upstairs in the same building hardly sounds radical, it was another world for us. This space offered us more room, better-looking surroundings, and even two bathrooms!

We had collected enough equipment at this point to require a vehicle to transport it to and from the hotel on Sundays. Fortunately, everything fit perfectly into the Creps’ old Volvo, making us “church in a car.”

The California Room year was spent becoming more “for real.”

Our leadership team realized that the name “360church” had nothing to do with circles and everything to do with 3 commitments (to our Creator, to Creatives, to the Connection between the two), that we live the other 6 days a week (because Sunday events are easy), with 0 regrets: 360

Marc Madrigal and John Sillcox made a strategic contribution during this time by completely redeveloping the 360church.net website in a legendary all-night work session.

Natasha Dagys, the first person to join the leadership team, also began developing the 360band, rehearsing in the Creps’ living room to lead the congregation in worship on Sunday mornings.

The leadership team more than doubled during the year of church in a car:

• Jeff and Ericka joined us as our first Associate Pastors
• Holly became our first 360intern
• Paul began to sing with the 360band
• Alan and Amy work with the band, blogging, and decision-making

The California Room became a greenhouse for growing the core group who would take 360church public. We took initial steps in this direction with our “We Love Berkeley” events, featuring a Stand-Up Comedy Night and a Reggae Night for Japan Earthquake Relief at a local café.

In this space we worked on how to represent the good news about Jesus in public meetings and online, and began to develop the team to make 360church happen.

The “Off Broadway” season of church in a car prepared us for an IPO to the Berkeley community and campus.

 

5. CHURCH IN A CITY

In early May 2011 we signed a lease for Suite 2100 at 2107 Dwight Way.

The property is near the corner of Dwight and Shattuck and gives us almost 5,000 square feet of space that includes a large area for gatherings, offices, meeting rooms, a children’s area, a kitchen, and even a small parking lot.

For the first time, we will have access to a facility on a 24/7 basis, rather than for just a few hours on Sunday morning.

Best of all, we will be right in the heart of downtown Berkeley, but still easy walking distance from the campus. With a BART station only 6 blocks away and a major bus line running on Shattuck Avenue, the facility is easily accessible from the whole region.

With our new location, we will be able to serve both the city and the campus in ways that we can’t even imagine now.

The community is invited to our Grand Opening on Sunday, August 28, 2011 at 11AM.