Pastors Get a Lesson in Ministering to the Hungry : Religion: A Methodist official asked 17 members of the clergy to prepare and serve a breakfast for nearly 90 homeless and unemployed people.

As economic woes squeeze the budgets of middle-class families and their churches, a regional official of the United Methodist Church decided that the clergy under his aegis ought to have a pre-Thanksgiving reminder that there are still many people worse off.

As a result, 17 pastors in the San Fernando Valley showed up Wednesday at Sepulveda United Methodist Church to serve breakfast to nearly 90 homeless and unemployed people.

“We can easily forget how bad this recession is hitting some people,” said the Rev. Donald Locher, the Methodists’ Chatsworth-based district superintendent who issued the invitations to fix and serve the biscuits-and-gravy meal.

Tom Hinton, 50, and Andre Lane, 26, for instance, walked a few miles from Van Nuys where they live with friends while they look for work. “Even if you find a job, it’s tough because most bus lines stop running about 8 or 9 p.m.,” Hinton said.

Both men were at the church, which serves breakfast twice weekly, for the third time. “It’s a good place to come,” Lane said. “They ask you if you want more, and let you take a shower, shave and give you a deodorant if you want.”

Actually, some pastors didn’t need the hands-on reminder.

Since September, Valencia United Methodist Church has been preparing boxed meals each Thursday night and taking them to two sites in Santa Clarita to distribute to needy people, the Rev. Peter Falbo said.

And the Rev. James Beebe, pastor of San Fernando United Methodist Church, said his congregation recently finished construction of a building with a commercial-sized kitchen to accommodate a program similar to the one at Sepulveda United Methodist. “We’re using this church as a model,” Beebe said.

The 300-member, multiethnic church a half-block west of Sepulveda Boulevard has had a feeding program for 13 years. Councilwoman Joy Picus, who visited the kitchen at the invitation of a pastor, called the operation “little-noticed, but impressive.”

“It’s volunteers only and we don’t get city, state or federal money,” emphasized Verna Porter, 73, of Panorama City, who left no doubt who was in charge of the kitchen.

Porter said concerns were raised about five years ago in the Sepulveda Chamber of Commerce that the feedings were attracting homeless people from other areas. Porter said she told them the poverty was closer to home than they thought. “I spoke to one of their meetings and I think they realized that these are people who are already here,” she said.

The Rev. Lee Louderback said the congregation wants to expand its feeding program as well as its food pantry and thrift shop. “But it has reached the point where we can’t do it ourselves; we need more volunteers and foodstuff from outsiders,” he said.