Bringing One Another Up Through Education: How LoveINC Works to Promote Education

By Travis Jones

Learning about the relationship between poverty and education these last few weeks has been insightful. Today, building off what we have been discussing, we are going to look at how LoveINC works to address issues that arise from a lack of education in our community.

LoveINC works to respond to a lack of education in two categories:               

1) education for those experiencing poverty in our community, and

2) education for the church.

1. For those experiencing poverty

From our initial contact with them over the phone, we let our neighbors know what services we can provide through our partner churches and we also share with them other resources in the community that may be helpful for them. Oftentimes, people don’t know about help they can receive in their own community. They may not know that they qualify for government assistance, or that there is a food bank down the street from them.

Beyond that, the primary way we try to address the issue of a lack of education is through our recently inaugurated Healthy Habits program. Through this program, our church partners provide curriculum that teaches new ideas and offers supportive relationships so our neighbors can apply what they learn to live healthier, flourishing lives. This can be things like how to have healthy boundaries with family, how to say “no”, how to manage your finances well, and a number of other skills that are essential to a thriving life in community.

1. For the church

On the other side of this, we also provide opportunities for Christians to learn more both about who we are as God’s people and the calling He has for us, as well as who our neighbors are and how we can help those specifically dealing with poverty. 

I want to be careful though, not to promote a “those people” mindset. As if church people don’t need that much help but “those people” outside of the church do. We are all created equally and no one person, Christian or not, is better than another. This is a toxic and unbiblical mindset to have and we must repent when our minds start to think this way, and I say this from experience. We all have needs, we can all benefit from more education and help. 

At LoveINC, we work to educate those in the church to prevent this damaging mindset and teach Christians how to serve their community in a humble, non-patronizing manner. The regular training sessions we offer to the church promotes a way of helping others that emphasizes finding long-term, sustainable solutions for the needs within our community. We look to educate the church on how they can help beyond just charity, but by sharing life with their neighbors.

We also bring awareness to the church on what issues and needs are present in their community, based on what our neighbors call in to ask for help with. The founder of LoveINC national, Virgil Gulker, noticed that, “…the usual arrangements for helping the needy remove opportunities from church members, reserving those opportunities for a corps of professionals… Church members are deprived of their privilege, their birthright, to minister…”¹ This is why Virgil founded LoveINC, to educate the church on who they can help in their community.

These are the ways that we work to educate our community and address the issues caused by a lack of education. However, we are always looking for ways to expand how we help and support our neighbors. Leave a comment below on what other areas you see where education is needed!

¹ Virgil Gulker, Help is Just Around the Corner: How Love Inc. Mobilizes Care for the Needy (Altamonte Springs, FL: Creation House Strang Communications Company, 1988), 33.