You see, I am dyed in the wool-true blue, through and through — and this is what the gospel of Jesus Christ means to me.

Four years ago, I peered through the glass doors of Provo’s Genesis Project looking for service opportunities-not religion. Church pastor, Justin Banks, answered the door and offered a meek apology. “Hey, we’re just out here doing Jesus.” He then invited me to take a volunteer shift watching over unhoused men and women as they slept.

In 2014, the first year of Banks’ nondenominational ministry, January temperatures plummeted to 15-degrees. Provo City’s zoning codes prohibit operation of homeless shelters, but he refused to turn a blind eye. Instead, he concocted a solution. On the two coldest nights forecasted each week, he set up a big screen television at the front of the chapel. The lights went down, and while the city’s gravely impoverished lay in the pews, the good pastor kept the movies playing at low volume until sunrise. Because “movie night” operated as a church function, Provo City code couldn’t shut it down.

I spent my first watch crocheting a scarf and tending to people’s needs. I got to know names long before I learned stories. I simply couldn’t help falling in love with the homeless people of Provo — the difficult ones most of all. They were people like me crushed by painful circumstance, and watching them reminded me of watching my sleeping children when they were small. I saw my friends for the children of God they are.

The next week, I attended worship service at Genesis Project for the first time.

On Sunday mornings, the parking lot looks like something out of the New Testament. Church members work over a portable grill while the crowd spreads blankets beneath the plum trees that line the green strip. Unhoused men and women sit on the curb beside their worldly possessions, sharing hot biscuits and gravy, and sipping fresh coffee. Volunteers offer haircuts and distribute basic survival necessities – clothing, pull carts, and 2,500 pounds of food each week.

The church serves approximately 1% of Provo’s population – the sort of people that I imagine gathered for the Sermon on the Mount.

“Pastor Justin” stands inconspicuously in the crowd, blessing people when asked, counseling the troubled, laughing and mourning with God’s flock of lost sheep.

“The love of God is attractional,” he says. It unites both the uncertain and the believing.

Rick, an atheist, has been engaged in emergency food relief projects for seventeen years. He met an unhoused couple on one of his rounds retrieving donations from a local grocery store.

“The woman’s only pair of shoes were the roller skates on her feet,” he says. “They requested a ride, and that’s how I found out Genesis Project was here.”

A month into COVID he set up a stand in the parking lot and started distributing food. Four and a half years later, he feels he’s making an impact.

“For my neighbors I might do a small favor; for these people it’s life changing,” he said.

Shawn stumbled into Genesis eighteen months ago, eager to get involved. At the break of dawn every Sunday, he rides his bike from Spanish Fork to Provo to help out. He’s a Christian without religious branding, and reminds me often that love is an action.

“I don’t do it for me,” he says. “It’s to help bring glory to God. I work for Jesus.”

John Wright, a devout ordained Christian, never seems to stop smiling. The compassionate, bearded brother lived on and off the street for eight years before discovering the church. Another unhoused friend brought him along to a service in 2020, and he kept going back. When a car was donated to the church, Banks gave it to Wright. The gift got him out of tents, and gave him the upward mobility to improve his situation. He became active in community projects, kicked addiction to alcohol and narcotics, and devoted the last three years to cooking Sunday breakfasts.

“God put it on my heart one day,” Wright says. “I’ve been doing everything I can to help other people since.”

Last winter, under the direction of Utah County’s winter response taskforce and Community Action Services and Food Bank, Genesis Project hosted one of three warming center sites. On Monday and Tuesday nights, mid-October through April, the unhoused returned to sleep in the humble house of God. This year, the county opted for a single warming center site – a red warehouse between Provo and Springville. And the little church has reached the end of the “movie night” era.

“I’ve learned there are chapters in life that come and go,” Banks says. “It’s not easy, but God knew what was coming. He used the church as an instrument of change in the community.”

In last week’s sermon, Pastor Justin said, “I want people to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. The relationship with God is what it’s all about. We tell ourselves, ‘If He knew me like I know me, how could He possibly love me?’ But He wants people to come to the love of Jesus when they sin. He is there for you and won’t forsake you, even when you’re failing. Through your struggle He’s with you, loves you, pours out His spirit on you. The love of God is just smiling down. He changes how we think; he changes our heart. That’s the truth.”

The pastor planted a mustard seed in South Provo, and with minimal funds he gave rest to the weary for a decade. To me that’s a miracle, a testimony that Christianity is alive and well in Provo. Although Genesis Project will no longer provide overnight shelter, the ministry will continue to support the spiritual and material needs of the unhoused. Come as you are. Sabbath worship service begins at 10:30 a.m.