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About
Love INC
More than 100 social service agencies, including the Department of Social Services, the Police
Department, both major hospitals and their clinics, home health agencies, and many churches
call Love INC when they have a client/patient with a need that no one is able to meet. If the
service is one that Love INC volunteers are able to provide, volunteers
or staff in the Love INC office will first verify that the need is a legitimate one and that
it is manageable for church volunteers to successfully complete.
Love INC has formed a network with more than 150 churches in the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. Many of those churches have completed a "Time & Talent"
inventory of their congregations to determine which volunteer services their members
are willing to offer to people in need. When a referral of a need comes in to the
Love INC office it is referred on to a Love INC volunteer who has volunteered to
do that service in one of Love INC’s network churches.
Love INC does not discriminate on the basis of religion, race, or sexual orientation
when providing services to clients referred to the Love INC ministry. No client is
required to convert to Christianity in order to receive service from Love INC church
volunteers. Although Love INC volunteers are willing to pray with a client and may
ask if the client wishes someone to pray with them, no clients are required to pray
in order to receive services.
Performance of any requested service is dependent upon the availability of a church
volunteer willing to donate that service.
How Love INC Works
| 1. |
Participating churches
survey their congregations and establish a file, listing members who are willing to volunteer
their services to help those in need even once or twice during a year. No one is committed
to serving every time they are called. |
| 2. |
Social Service
agencies, organizations, Victims Assistance programs, hospitals, clinics, churches and police
officers refer people who have special needs that no one else is able to meet to the Love INC office.
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| 3. |
A Love INC
office volunteer analyzes the need to make sure it is legitimate
and manageable. Love INC then phones volunteers from a network church,
who go out to meet the need. |
| 4. |
These
"field volunteers" can minister to, pray with and
befriend the person in need if they wish, although clients are
not required to be Christians or to convert to Christianity
to receive services from Love INC churches and volunteers.
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| 5. |
Love INC follows up with both
the church volunteers and the person in need to make sure the
helping experience fully achieved its goals. |
A Brief History of Love INC
Love INC of Mecklenburg County is a national, non-denominational
Christian ministry.
The local Love INC chapter in our County was founded in 1992 by several individuals in Charlotte
who love the Lord and wanted to serve their neighbors. The ministry started with only 13 churches
and a few volunteers. It was initially located in a small amount of donated space in a small, local church.
As the ministry has grown over the years, the same small church has donated more and more space.
As of this writing, the space is 2,000 sq. ft. and holds offices for 6 staff and several office
volunteers, working on a network of 9 computers.
Each year, thousands of individuals are helped by Love INC network churches and their volunteers.
The Love INC office functions as a "clearinghouse", or connector, between the person with the need and
Love INC network churches mobilized to meet the need. This is very different from an "agency", where the people
working for the agency provide the service. Love INC exists to help churches answer Jesus’ command to meet the
needs of the poor.
Love INC is a national ministry.
Visit the national site at: http://www.loveinc.org
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