Tucked into the corner of University Promenade across the street from Azusa Pacific University’s East Campus sits one of the best hidden gems in all of Southern California: The Ministry of Peculiarities. Created by brothers Jonathan (Jon) ’05 and Benjamin ’11 Berk, The Ministry is home to Hope End, a one-of-a-kind escape room that has captured the imagination of thousands. Since opening, The Ministry has received massive critical acclaim in the industry: It was voted the No. 5 escape room in the nation by a USA TODAY readers poll, was named the No. 51 escape room in the world in 2023 by the Top Escape Rooms Project, received a 2022 Golden Lock Award from Room Escape Artist, and was named to the Best of 2023 Escape Rooms by Morty. The Ministry was also featured in the Los Angeles Times as a magical mystery where participants feel like they are “creating the story” themselves.
“Receiving the industry awards has been affirming in what we hoped to create,” Jon said, “but what I really love is seeing how much fun people have as they accept our invitation to play. It’s great hearing them say they’ve been thinking about the experience for weeks afterward.”
Drawing participants into a quirky world of wonder, The Ministry separates itself from other escape rooms through immersive theater.
“People get to be a part of our performance from the moment they walk in the door,” Jon said. “We love seeing them interact with our actors as the story unfolds.”
Jon came up with the idea for The Ministry after completing numerous escape rooms in the area with a friend.
“We felt like we could create a better, more compelling experience,” he said.
Jon recruited Benjamin to help create the story for the room, which focuses on an extremely dysfunctional family with deep-set problems. Together with some help from their other two brothers—James ’02 and Jeremey ’06—they converted a former billiards hall into the escape room, building props by hand.
“It took a while because we had to teach ourselves how to make a lot of the puzzles work,” Benjamin said. “We made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot on the way, but we’re happy with how it turned out.”
After three years of building and a yearlong delay from the COVID-19 pandemic, The Ministry officially opened in September 2021. It operates one escape room experience, Hope End, with two more in the works.
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Starting an escape room wasn’t always in the Berk brothers’ plans. Jon studied philosophy and Benjamin studied English at APU, and after graduation, both brothers embarked on careers in a field they’d sworn they’d never go into—teaching.
“Education is great, it’s just that so many members of my family were teachers, including my mom, who taught at APU,” Jon said.
While he had planned on avoiding the family profession, Jon couldn’t pass up the opportunity to teach in another country. After graduating, he moved to Chengdu, China, and taught English at an international school for a year. Soon after, he applied for the Fulbright program and received an invitation to teach English at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.
“That was an amazing experience, one of the best of my life,” said Jon.
After Slovakia, Jon got a master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, then returned to the U.S. to teach at FLS International in Los Angeles. He now works at University of the West in Rosemead as the lead TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) instructor.
“In my role, I instruct students from a lot of countries in Asia who want to study at colleges in the U.S., but their English speaking ability isn’t quite there yet,” he said. “Helping them through that process has been really rewarding for me. I love hearing their stories and making lasting connections.”
Following in his brother’s footsteps, Benjamin applied to the Fulbright program and taught in Vidin, Bulgaria. While Benjamin had studied abroad at Oxford during his time at APU, living in Bulgaria was completely different, as he taught in one of the most impoverished cities in all of Europe.
“It was a really challenging area, but my students were great,” he said. “Fulbright centers around creating dialogue and promoting mutual understanding. Although I taught them about American culture, I learned more from them about Bulgarian culture, history, and their relations with other countries.”
After Bulgaria, Benjamin returned to the U.S. for several years to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) in Washington, DC, and Virginia, then moved abroad again to teach ESL in Brisbane and Melbourne, Australia, then in Wellington, New Zealand. Benjamin primarily instructed immigrants, helping them learn English so they could get jobs and support their families.
“It’s fun to travel to other countries,” he said, “but actually living there and getting to know their culture and see how it shapes people was life-changing for me.”
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One of the Berk brothers’ favorite parts of running The Ministry is seeing the wide variety of people who come through, including a number of people from other countries. Although they didn’t specifically incorporate puzzles from their experiences abroad into the escape room, they enjoy seeing how people from other cultures interact with them. But puzzles are just part of the experience.
What truly makes The Ministry special is the immersive performance of actors.
“We want our actors to be the experience,” Jon said. “From the moment groups enter, the characters begin interacting with them and the experience begins.”
Benjamin and Jon didn’t have to go far to find their actors, turning to APU’s theater department for help—they employ four alumni of the university’s renowned acting program.
“They have excellent training and have been an indispensable part of the experience,” Benjamin said. “Their interactions make it so much more personal, and that’s had the biggest impact on participants.”
While Benjamin and Jon Berk didn’t anticipate creating an escape room a block away from their alma mater and from where their father, Randy, still works as the manager of landscape services, their full-circle journey has touched countless lives. Through The Ministry, Benjamin and Jon invite people to a unique and unforgettable experience, welcoming others into their story who may then go out and write their own.