BARISTA FELLOWS
Community | Craft | Hospitality
The Background
The Christian Study Center of Gainesville (CSC) and Pascal’s Coffeehouse are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The CSC was founded with the intention of bringing together students, faculty, and community members to explore the intellectual and cultural resources of the Christian tradition. Drawing on these resources the Study Center engages at high levels of scholarship in order to address enduring human questions and respond to challenges created by contemporary culture. The Study Center provides classes, reading groups, workshops, lectures, and the Barista Fellows program as ways of realizing these aims.
Pascal’s Coffeehouse is probably the name you would most associate with our building. Pascal’s was established in 2004 as a community-facing initiative of the Christian Study Center. Pascal’s serves the university community by providing a space for conversation, community, and learning to flourish. We like to imagine that our tables have stories to tell. On them people have written dissertations and books, engaged in life-altering philosophical and theological conversations, designed beautiful buildings and sculptures, and maybe even met their future spouse. It is a wonderful place to steward.
Barista Fellows
The Barista Fellows is a program of moral and spiritual formation with an integral work and craft element.
Barista Fellows learn to see life, work, and faith as intricately intertwined and deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, while intentionally growing in the core values of community, craft, and hospitality. When you become a Barista Fellow you are invited into the life of our coffeehouse Pascal’s and into the larger Christian Study Center community. Fellows work 8-15 hours per week on the bar, learning the craft of coffee under the guidance of the coffeehouse manager and senior baristas. They are also welcomed into a reading group that meets throughout the semester called Barista Society in which they will have an opportunity to think, read, and converse with a community whose lives are already joined through the work they do. This program requires high levels of commitment and investment. We hope that you would come and deeply root yourself in the life of this fellowship, and we can attest to its formative impact in our own lives.
Community
Deadline for Submission: Monday, April 15th at midnight.
Please contact manager@christianstudycenter.org with any further questions!
The Background
The Christian Study Center of Gainesville (CSC) and Pascal’s Coffeehouse are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The CSC was founded with the intention of bringing together students, faculty, and community members to explore the intellectual and cultural resources of the Christian tradition. Drawing on these resources the Study Center engages at high levels of scholarship in order to address enduring human questions and respond to challenges created by contemporary culture. The Study Center provides classes, reading groups, workshops, lectures, and the Barista Fellows program as ways of realizing these aims.
Pascal’s Coffeehouse is probably the name you would most associate with our building. Pascal’s was established in 2004 as a community-facing initiative of the Christian Study Center. Pascal’s serves the university community by providing a space for conversation, community, and learning to flourish. We like to imagine that our tables have stories to tell. On them people have written dissertations and books, engaged in life-altering philosophical and theological conversations, designed beautiful buildings and sculptures, and maybe even met their future spouse. It is a wonderful place to steward.
Barista Fellows
The Barista Fellows is a program of moral and spiritual formation with an integral work and craft element.
Barista Fellows learn to see life, work, and faith as intricately intertwined and deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, while intentionally growing in the core values of community, craft, and hospitality. When you become a Barista Fellow you are invited into the life of our coffeehouse Pascal’s and into the larger Christian Study Center community. Fellows work 8-15 hours per week on the bar, learning the craft of coffee under the guidance of the coffeehouse manager and senior baristas. They are also welcomed into a reading group that meets throughout the semester called Barista Society in which they will have an opportunity to think, read, and converse with a community whose lives are already joined through the work they do. This program requires high levels of commitment and investment. We hope that you would come and deeply root yourself in the life of this fellowship, and we can attest to its formative impact in our own lives.
Community
- Our view of the community has been shaped by C.S. Lewis’s essay, “Membership,” which is a meditation on 1 Corinthians 12. In the essay, Lewis describes Christian community as membership. In the same way that our organs are differentiated but part of a harmonious body, we are a community made of unique persons that are integral parts of a harmonious whole. We trust that God has created us for this kind of fellowship and that it is reflective of His Trinitarian nature.
- This community is nourished and sustained by our gatherings in Barista Society, retreats, work behind the bar, and coffee education meetings. There are also many spontaneous and organic outings, game nights, and dinners that the fellows end up planning on their own.
- The Barista Fellows program contains a work and craft component that we take seriously. Fellows will be trained to be coffee professionals, crafting excellent coffee and engaging in genuine hospitality.
- We use an apprenticeship model for learning, wherein our senior baristas and coffeehouse manager will teach apprentice baristas the craft of coffee. Fellows grow both in the humility required to learn from one another and the responsibility required to teach one another.
- We will philosophically and theologically engage with questions around work and craft, such as: What is work? Why do we work? What does it mean to work as an act of worship? Why does the way we work matter? What is craft? What does it mean to master a craft? What is the difference between “tool” and “machine”? What is art?
- The word “house” is in our name and in many ways, we like to think of this place as our home. As Barista Fellows, you are hosts for the coffeehouse and the Christian Study Center. Yours is the first face of welcome that people will encounter, and it is our role to care for those who walk through our doors. It is also our role to care for our home, keeping it clean and beautiful for others to enjoy.
- We will explore values around hospitality such as attention, presence, and care. We will also ask questions about what is unique in Christian hospitality, the history of hospitality in the Christian tradition, and what it means to love our neighbor and the stranger.
- An undergraduate student at the University of Florida or Sante Fe College.
- A commitment to attending all Barista Society meetings, Coffee Education meetings, our semesterly Spiritual Formation/Coffee Education trip, and working 8-15 hours per week on the bar.
Deadline for Submission: Monday, April 15th at midnight.
Please contact manager@christianstudycenter.org with any further questions!