Faithfully Bringing Heaven to Hollywood: Jen's Story

Jen Howell is a script coordinator in Hollywood. She’s worked on shows like Tulsa King, Arrested Development, Transparent, and many multi-cam sitcoms. She’s also an InterVarsity alumna! We sat down with her on the InterVarsity World Changers podcast. Below is a summary of her story. 

Growing up, Jen Howell believed the world was a hopeless place, and she felt powerless about her ability to change it.   

On a mission trip in Mexico her senior year of high school, Jen heard God clearly tell her to “go to Northwestern.” She applied to Northwestern University and was accepted, but she was also accepted to the University of Southern California (USC). Jen knew she wanted to pursue film, and USC was the number one film school in the world at the time. Ultimately, she was obedient to God and decided to attend Northwestern. 

At Northwestern, Jen got plugged into Greek InterVarsity. Through InterVarsity, she learned for the first time that the gospel wasn’t just about individual salvation but was also a message of hope for a broken world. 

“God is on this move to radically redeem, restore, and renew all things … and we can bring heaven to earth,” Jen said. 

InterVarsity also taught Jen how to deeply study Scripture and showed her the value of relational ministry. A year after graduating, she heard God clearly tell her again to move to Los Angeles and work in the entertainment industry. 

A Megaphone and a Whisper 

Just as Jen was obedient to God’s direction as a high school senior, she remained obedient after college. Of course, this wasn’t always easy. 

Almost immediately after moving to LA, the entertainment industry shut down due to the 2007 writers' strike. Jen was initially confused, but God told her that she was like Joseph in Genesis, who received a big dream and instead received the opposite. This understanding gave her the hope and endurance she needed to stay in LA. 

“I’m going to give you two voices,” Jen remembers God telling her. “The first is a megaphone, which is the content you’ll create, but the second is a whisper. I care more about the whisper.” 

The whisper was the relational impact Jen would make in Hollywood. 

For the next few years, she slowly built her career as a script coordinator. Her job involves moving from show to show and working with teams of writers to ideate and create season arcs, episodes, and characters. She’s worked on shows like Tulsa King, Arrested Development, and Transparent, among others. 

After 13 years in the industry, a well-known actress and a producer reached out to Jen hoping to develop a new television show with her. This collaboration was extremely exciting and unexpected, but ultimately it fell apart. 

What seemed on the surface like failure was actually an opportunity for Jen to grow close to the two women as one of them went through a divorce. Jen demonstrated the love of Christ to them, speaking into their lives in different ways and supporting one of them through a difficult experience. 

Because Jen’s work involves running into the same people repeatedly, building trust and letting others find out about her faith at the right moment is key. This is a skill Jen says she owes to InterVarsity, where she learned that it’s to minister to others by building trust and relationships first. 

Hollywood Encountering God 

In 2020, God gave Jen a vision for something she calls the “Hollywood Tithe,” which involves building relationships in Hollywood, inviting those people into non-traditional discipleship, and — after those people have a life-changing encounter with God — inviting them to partner in the work God is doing to bring heaven to earth. 

Some of this work can involve developing nations, bringing people access to clean water, rebuilding communities, and ultimately working towards sustainable change that glorifies God here and now. 

Although Jen is still figuring out all the pieces to bring this vision to life, she’s ready to obey God as he directs her. She knows that faithfulness to God doesn’t mean immediate results — her years in Hollywood have required a lot of patience, and she's seen plenty of periods without miracles — but God is faithful, nonetheless.   

“Hollywood needs an encounter with Christ,” she said. 

Listen to Jen's full story here. And join us in praying for world changers, like Jen and many others, as they invite entire communities to encounter God!