Last fall I led SOULink, InterVarsity’s ministry to artistic students at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, during a four week discussion about money and the Kingdom of God. The first week we discussed our view of money and what we had been taught about money as we were growing up. The second week we studied the Gospel of Mark chapter 11, the story of Jesus entering the temple and overthrowing the table of the money-changers because they were cheating. The third week was spent creating art in response to our discussions and the fourth week we shared our art with one another.
At the end of the month, Bethany, a theater major, suggested we try applying what we had learned by using our money to throw a party for some of the kids in the neighborhood. (Most of these kids come from low income homes. Many of them don’t get much attention from their parents; some of them have no parents at all.)
A few days later, after putting the word out on the street, a dozen black and hispanic kids—some of them from blocks away whom we’d never seen before—were suddenly in the middle of our living room, ready to have a good time. The SOULink students brought pumpkins. They showed the kids how to paint and decorate them. The kids bobbed for apples, and showed us some of their favorite dance moves. We all had a fantastic time.
Since that night, several of the students from SOULink have decided to give up their summer to participate in the Los Angeles Urban Project, an InterVarsity summer missions project that works with local organizations to minister to people in inner city Los Angeles. The students will spend their summer using their artistic gifts to serve some of the disadvantaged, and to empower them by teaching them to express themselves artistically.
It is so inspiring for me to see these students go from being self absorbed, and having ambitions only to excel in their art, to becoming people who care about those who have less than they, and are choosing to invest their lives and gifts in the inner city. Students’ lives are changed and then they go and change the world!
