It doesn’t look much like a church, with its tiled walls and yellow-tinted florescent lighting. By day the room serves as a dinning hall, and at night it becomes a dormitory filled with about 40 sleeping homeless people.

But on Sundays, this rectangular room on the first floor of the Coalition of Service and Charities (COSAC) homeless shelter is transformed into a house of God. Tables are folded and
put away, and chairs are rotated into pew-like rows.

"It’s a little weird, but you can have church anywhere," says Nick Davis, who works as a security guard at the Hollywood shelter.

An employee at the shelter for about a month, Davis enjoys going to the services, which draw 20 to 25 people each week. "We really get into it," he says.

The services are like other churches’. There are songs, and the Bible is preached. But there is one caveat. Much like the building, the parishioners at this make-shift church aren’t your typical Sunday churchgoers.

"If you are bad, we want you," says Sean Cononie, founder/director of COSAC and one of three ministers who run services there.

Though it sounds like a cliché church joke, Cononie is serious. Signs posted on the shelter’s walls implore even transvestites and drug addicts to attend this non-denominational church. One of the church’s mottos is "Come as you are" — which is also one of Cononie’s favorite hymns.

"It doesn’t matter what baggage you have. Come as you are," says Cononie, who adds that all religions are welcome.

One of Davis’ favorite preachers is simply named "Pastor D."

"She’s very energetic," he says. "She’s very sincere in what
she tells us."

Larry Campbell, who lives at the shelter, also goes to the Sunday service and has more than positive feelings about it.

"[The service] is about sharing, caring and loving one another in the name of Jesus," he says. "It’s a wonderful place to be and helps get your life back on track."