They don’t have a name. One won’t see their signs on the walls or a table representing them near the cafeteria entrance. But this group of committed students is acting as a real force of change in the lives of the poor – serving breakfast to the homeless on Skid Row and helping one woman recreate her life by finding and helping her maintain a home a car and a job.
The group’s purpose according to junior Trudy Taylor is to discover “what [it means] to serve Jesus to live sacrificially to care for the poor in the 21st century of an affluent developed nation she said.
The volunteer group is comprised of about 30 students who have come together with one purpose in mind – to serve.
I think a lot of us … felt this void of community and disconnect between the kind of lifestyle and community that we read about in the New Testament and what we were experiencing in conventional churches every Sunday Taylor said. So this started not as a rejection of the church by any means but a new way to present an example … another way church can be done.”
Early Sunday mornings Taylor and others in the group serve at Midnight Mission on Skid Row where the homeless are taken in rehabilitated and given jobs.
“We do serve them breakfast … but the main ministry there is treating people like people said junior Jaclyn Belue.
Junior Andy Smith spends his Sundays at Powerhouse, a church in Watts supported by World Impact. Smith and members of the group go to neighboring cities to pick up people and help with worship, Sunday school classes and breakfast.
Andy Shawn [Yoon] and the Pepperdine crew are outstanding leaders said Powerhouse Pastor Todd Grant, a full-time World Impact missionary. More than all that they do they are sincere Christians who shine with the love of Christ. They are a huge blessing to the church family. We love them and are so grateful that God has sent them this way.”
They do more than buying breakfast for the homeless or even finding means to help a fellow member get a computer. They recently helped give a woman they met at Midnight Mission a home car and job for a year to help her begin a new life expenses that many college students who pool all their money simply cannot afford on their own.
But without becoming an established group on campus one cannot help wondering how they finance any of this. Malibu residents helped the cause by donating money to raise for gas car insurance and offering free rent for a year.
“For the bigger things I feel that God has been really clear and faithful Belue said. It’s awesome – the less we care about money the more it comes.”
Monetary concerns aside Smith speaks for the group in saying that “this is our life calling … We restructure our lives so that we can meet [others’] needs.”
The group of which about 15 to 20 members are regularly active meets on Tuesdays to spend time on prayer and Scripture and takes genuine interest in the lives of each member – “not being fake with each other Belue said. The members reject excess materialism and espouse a community style of living.
Instead of trying to keep up and buy new things when we need something we come to the community and ask Belue said, It’s the idea that nothing’s really ours. It’s all on loan so if anyone needs anything they take it.”
Smith said he knows it sounds bizarre at first glance.
“It sounds a little crazy and hippie-like … but the idea is not ‘let’s do this just to do it'” Smith said. “It’s because what Christ calls his disciples to do is “crazy” because it doesn’t fit with what’s comfortable or normal in this culture that’s so individualistic.”
But they say the idea is not new.
“If you look at the past when Christians have lived in situations where there’s persecution or when they don’t have a fridge full of food or a steady job they literally had to depend on each other in this way Taylor said. I think we’ve forgotten how to do that.”