FAITHFUL OBSERVATIONS:
Love INC is not new across the country but relatively new in Kootenai County. We did a column about Love INC locally on Jan. 1, 2019, and thought it time to check back in.
This began when Rachel Grady and her husband moved here after being involved in Love INC in Oregon. The name means “love in the name of Christ.” This is an organization that is in more than 140 communities in 30 states. The purpose is to network local churches, church volunteers and community organizations together to help people in need.
After interviewing Rachel, I went to our church pastors and explained the process. Someone shows up at the church in need, perhaps money for utilities, fuel, groceries or a variety of issues. The church often wants to help but isn’t sure if this is legitimate or are we the sixth church today?
With the model that Love INC provides, the pastoral staff helps them set an appointment. There they have trained counselors to take care of the immediate need but also to walk them through a series of questions to find out the underlying problems and how they can be met.
After explaining this to the pastors, it was as if a light bulb went off! They thought this was a great program and an answer that provides real help to people instead of a Band-Aid on the wound. The program has grown over the last year and the new executive director is a committed young lady by the name of Ashley Howard. In an interview we asked some questions to get an update on what is happening.
Ashley, I know this is just the second year of the ministry. How has the ministry done?
We have seven churches involved and are meeting with pastors to have more involvement. We assisted more than 50 families this past year and often this requires several hours of help. It might include employment, budgeting, family counseling and financial help along with other issues.
We have had dozens of volunteers and at this point need more to fill the time slots. We are open on Tuesday and Friday and ask volunteers to serve a two-hour shift. We can always use more volunteers.
Explain the training and approach you use for people who are referred to Love INC.
We train our volunteers in a program called “Redemptive Compassion” that has been developed to specifically meet the needs of people seeking assistance. This is a six-week training course that we incorporate into the volunteer’s schedule.
The transformative classes and compassionate fellowship found within the Love INC Transformational Ministry Program has the potential to help our neighbors break free from need and change the trajectory of their lives to a positive and sustainable direction. Our assistance in the TM Program is accomplished through providing a hand up and not a hand out. A handout requires little to no effort on the part of the receiver. A handout is crippling because it communicates and reinforces the notion that someone in chronic need does not need to change, or make different decisions, or exert effort to meet their own needs beyond asking another to provide for them.
A hand UP offers compassion that has the capacity to redeem. Providing a hand up to struggling neighbors recognizes the core values of redemptive compassion, which maintain that everyone has value, everyone has capacity and potential, mutual participation is important, we must use wisdom and discernment in our responses, what we do should help transform lives, and that we are all called to invest relationally in each other.
Christ has called us into relationship with one another, when He commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. It is through building relationships that we will truly be able to love into one another as we are called to do. A hand up encourages, inspires, and invests in the person and their future, not just their immediate need.
This is a challenge to all churches to support a ministry like this. The concept and purpose seems to be aimed in the right direction.
Christ has promised all a life of abundance found in the Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), and has assured us that through belief and reliance on Him, we will be provided for (Philippians 4:19). Christ has commanded us all to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to be a witness for Him (Matthew 22:36-40)(1 Peter 3:15). Through the Transformational Ministry Program, you will have the opportunity to live out His call in a way that introduces your neighbors to His grace, His mercy, and His provision. With a small investment of your time, your example can guide others desire a life with Him, and that is where the life transformation we speak of occurs, and that is the ultimate goal!
What other churches in Idaho are also involved in Love INC?
We have affiliates in Weiser, Nampa and Boise. The Boise-Nampa (Treasure Valley) is comprised of over 40 churches and they have helped hundreds.
If anyone wants more information on how their church can participate or they can volunteer, how do they do that?
They can go to their website at loveinckc.org or email me at ashley@loveinckc.org.
If churches would like to receive our online newsletter we invite them to email me also. There will also be an informational meeting for any church or individual who would like to know more to be involved or volunteer. This will be on Thursday, March 26 from 11:30 to 1 p.m. in the youth lounge at Coeur d’Alene Bible Church.
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Bob Shillingstad’s columns appear Saturdays in The Press. Email Bob: bjshill@mac.com
