Jamie Stark
Tucked just behind Mickey's Dairy Bar near Camp Randall is a small, yellow house with an unvarnished porch. If not for the sign that reads "Campus Community Church," you would never know that an eclectic mix of Christians meets there Sundays for family-room style worship. For some 25 years, the house has served as church for a predominantly Korean congregation. It is now sharing the space, as a small startup church for college students, named Red Village, moved in this year.
Campus Community Church is the older of the two ecclesiastical roommates. The congregation, about half of Korean descent, have owned and used the former house at 816 Oakland Ave. as their church for 25 years, according to Associate Pastor Paul Laska.
Pastor Mark Hong founded Campus Community Church when he moved from South Korea to the U.S. in the early '80s. The church has since bought a neighboring house and hopes to expand to a larger worship hall someday. It is affiliated with the Central Baptist Association of the Southern Baptist Convention, Campus Mission International, and its collegiate ministry C-4 Badgers.
About 25 people attended the 10:45 a.m. Sunday service, though more worshipers, primarily college students, typically attend the 2 p.m. service. The sermon was generally traditional in form, in which the pastor discusses a chosen Bible passage and relates it to everyday life.
No communion that Sunday, but we did break bread together after the service for a full lunch in the basement. Nearly half the congregation took the time to introduce themselves and learn my name and major. After we sang "Happy Birthday" for several members and an ice cream cake was sliced, everyone looked to my friend and me nearly simultaneously and said, "you first!" The crowd of smiling faces staring me down, waiting for me to eat, would have been unnerving if the meatball sandwiches weren't so godly. When we left, my friend said, "They put other people before themselves. That's how a Christian community should be."
But perhaps Campus Community Church's best public service is handing out free hot dogs and tailgate chow before Badger home games. There's nothing more Christian than that.
Red Village, a bible study turned church, is the new occupant of the building just south of the UW campus. It meets on Sundays at 6 p.m. Pastor Aaron Jozwiak named it Red for the Badgers and Village for the community he's trying to engage. It is affiliated the North American Mission Board, a Baptist group.
On one recent Sunday night, nearly 40 kids crowded the worship space on stackable chairs in what would be the house's living room. As I snuck in late, a guitarist and singer were crooning pensive Christian music in the corner.
The sermon stayed true to the church's bible-study roots. I felt like I was back in high school, as Pastor Jozwiak used PowerPoint to emphasize his teaching while the three dozen college-aged students hunched over fill-in-the-blank worksheets he had provided. Admittedly, I paid better attention to the pastor's words with the worksheet fighting my YouTube-gen attention span.
Communion began with two halves of a crusty bread loaf and a bowl of grape juice sitting on a piano bench. The pastor invited us to take communion when and if we felt comfortable as the guitar played softly in the corner; casual enough for student tastes. Neither living room nor classroom adequately describes Red Village. The setting was quiet yet emotional, with plenty of time purposefully dedicated to individual meditation.
I was skeptical before the service, expecting a preachy tone too conservative for my beliefs. But the experience was so informal, friendly and personalized that I could easily relate to the literalist sermon, despite my blasphemous, New-Aged ways. I left feeling happier with the world. And the cookies afterwards made the whole trip worth it.
Red Village epitomizes the small church. I felt like a member of the family before I left my first service. The entrepreneurial pastor and his wife were happy to treat everyone to McDonald's ice cream after the service. Jozwiak took the time to understand who I am and offered to treat me to lunch or coffee anytime simply to chat.
The two congregations that share this house are similar in their commitment to reaching students and their intimate size, but different in delivery. With Campus Community Church, Pastor Hong has created a second family, a home-away-from-home for his congregants. Pastor Jozwiak is well on his way to doing the same.
Jamie Stark is a student at UW-Madison majoring in journalism and political science. He is a member of Luther Memorial Church and writes about the diverse religious community in Madison.
