New College Berkeley

About

Preparing the whole people of God for active ministry in all the settings in which God has placed them

Story

New College Berkeley was founded in 1977 by a group of Bay Area lay Christians, pastors, and scholars committed to providing high-calibre interdisciplinary studies for the laity. The organization is led by an executive team, a Board of Trustees and an Advisory Board. The Executive Director is Susan S. Phillips, Ph.D. and the Associate Director is Sharon Gallagher, M.T.S.. New College Berkeley is an affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union.

Many Christians want to develop a stronger relationship between Sunday morning worship and their Monday morning responsibilities. Most of us spend many years and many dollars becoming "expert" in one secular field or another. Yet few of us have developed the same degree of discipline focused on our faith and its relevance and significance for our age and our vocations.

It is the purpose of New College Berkeley to recover an understanding of ministry as bringing God's presence into the public world of work, politics, civic life, the academic disciplines, and commerce, as well as into the private spaces of personal discipleship, family and friendship.

Contact:
New College Berkeley
2029 Durant Ave., #300
Berkeley, California 94704-1564
(510) 841-9386
[email protected]

NCB Board of Trustees:
Dr. Clayton Radke, Chair
Dr. Young-il Choo, Treasurer
Dr. Phillip Stillman, Secretary
Richard L. Leong, Vice-Chair
Laurel S. Gasque
Jeffrey G. Bairey
Rev. Earl Palmer
Patricia Phillips
M. Stephen Ryan
Lip-Bu Tan
Andrew Wollitzer

NCB Advisory Board:
Dr. Robert E. Bellah
Dr. Richard Bube
Martha Chan
the Rev. Dr. William Dyrness
Roger Hughes, Esq.
the Rev. Dr. John Perkins
the Rev. Dr. Ted Peters
the Rev. Dr. Eugene Peterson
Dr. James W. Sire
the Rev. Dr. William H. Willimon

Mission

Mission & Goals

We live in a culture hungry for meaning and personal identity, yet it lacks the underlying truth that clarifies and sustains life. Our culture desperately needs moral direction. As people awaken to this crisis of our times, some graze the smorgasbord of contemporary spiritualities, while the lives of many others are dominated by economic, rather than spiritual, concerns.

In the midst of this confusion, the ministry of New College Berkeley is clear: To equip people to walk in newness of life with Jesus Christ.

Our mission is to shed the light of the gospel into our spiritually confused culture. NCB serves the whole people of God by maintaining a high-quality program of interdisciplinary and integrative courses, conferences, seminars, lectures, and retreats focused on matters of lay Christian concern.

New College Berkeley addresses :

The marginalization of faith in the public arena.

The privatization of spirituality and isolation of individual believers.

The separation of what we do and think about on Sunday from our concerns and activities during the other six days of the week.

The poverty of biblical and theological reflection on matters of work, relationships, public policy, economics, the arts and culture, alternative spiritualities, and other areas of ethical concern.

The trivialization of faith, such that religion becomes one of many leisure-time pursuits rather than forming the foundation of our identity, understanding, and engagement with the world.

Products

Classes, seminars, conferences, group spiritual direction, retreats