Service as an Expression of Faith

In his sermon “The Good Steward,” John Wesley describes time as something entrusted to us “from moment to moment.”  As daughters and sons living in a community of believers, we are stewards, not owners, of our time.

During their undergraduate journey, Point Loma Nazarene University students are strongly encouraged to commit some of their time in service to God, each other, and their neighbors—local, national and global.  Chapel presentations, including special guest speakers from a variety of Christian perspectives, help encourage and direct students to paths of sacrificial service that complement their academic pursuits.  By participating in initiatives such as international studies, Love Works, Urban Term and work-and-witness trips, students can contribute to society through communal service projects that demand a sacrifice of material and personal comfort.

The faculty, staff, and students of PLNU recognize that service projects alone cannot change the human condition.  Economic injustice, for example, has its roots in the more basic evils of the human heart—greed, taste for luxury, and propensity to waste.  We can work hard to alleviate the temporal needs of our neighbor, but experience no permanent results until the inner person is transformed.

At PLNU, we are attentive to the spiritual motivations of those engaged in service, as well as those whom we serve.  An economic ethic cannot be separated from holistic concern for the development of persons that is rooted in all areas of University life:  academic affairs, spiritual formation, and student development.  Our policies and practices of service are both vertical and horizontal in nature, balancing love for God and love for neighbor.

John Wesley also taught that our works of love are to be released to the Source from whence they came—the result being that, as we love, we are filled with light.  The University community serves others, we grow and develop skills to become practitioners of the “redeemed life,” working to transform physical creation, the family, society, the human condition and corporate church life.