The Ocean City Beach Project changed me. The CCO’s ministry through the Beach Project invited me to take Jesus Christ seriously. It is sad but true to say that I found no teaching in my home church—which I loved—or at college that called me to live differently, that demonstrated to me that following Christ meant a radical shift in the way we look at our culture and our place in it.
Before the Beach Project, I was a Christian who hoped to live the American dream; after the Beach Project, I understood that the American dream was a shallow and specious idea of what life might be, but that it was ultimately self-absorbed and empty.
I first connected to the CCO’s ministry at Grove City College when I was invited to join a Bible study, and I participated in OCBP the summer after my sophomore year.
That summer opened my eyes irrevocably to the reality of God and the sacrificial death of Christ—and I had been a serious Christ-seeker and follower before this. But the Beach Project helped me understand in new and life-changing ways what it meant to pursue justice, to live first as a citizen of God’s kingdom, to study scripture in meaningful ways, to think about my obedience to God in caring for His world and in loving others.
Living in community changed my attitude about myself in fundamental ways: somehow doing this deliberately and not with family forced me to think outside myself. It was fundamental and amazing and so good.
—Rebecca Stevenson, Grove City College 1991 | August 12, 2010
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