It’s the beginning of the school year! Whether you’re excited, nervous, or completely obvious about the new school year, UBA churches around the city are preparing to help their local schools through an organization called Loving Houston.
Loving Houston was founded on the idea that Christians should serve their communities and love others as God first loved us, As an organization, they believe that investing in children has the greatest potential for long-term community transformation.
Loving Houston believes that investing in children has the greatest potential for long-term community transformation.
Though many challenges exist among students in underserved schools, hope can still shine through. Education provides opportunities for children to break free from their challenges and live up to their God-given potential.
These same convictions drove Marilyn Lee to become involved with Loving Houston in 2014. Now, she serves as the Executive Director. Marilyn got an MBA with the goal of helping churches address challenges like poverty. Loving Houston is doing just that through school partnerships.
Connecting Churches, Impacting Communities
Loving Houston mobilizes local churches to partner with their neighborhood schools. Through church networks like Union Baptist Association, Houston Church Planting Network, Catholic Charities, and others, churches are made aware of how each congregation might partner with a nearby school to meet needs. Loving Houston also spreads the word via social media and email, and they also host workshops for school representatives to teach them how to reach out to local churches as well.
Loving Houston has started over forty church-school partnerships, resulting in hundreds of volunteers serving schools and tangibly sharing Jesus' love. One church—Second Baptist Church— became involved with Loving Houston in 2015 because their pastor had a vision for inner-city ministry in the Acres Homes area of Houston. Second Baptist sponsors five schools and has completed over 14,000 hours of volunteer work for these schools over the past two years, including mentoring, tutoring, periodic service projects, and collecting school supplies and equipment. Visit Loving Houston’s website to find more stories of church-school partnerships.
Once Loving Houston facilitates a church and school partnership, they let the church take the reigns. The church and school can then build a mutually beneficial relationship tailored to goals, size, needs, volunteer giftings, etc.
Most churches maintain a one-to-one partnership with a school, so they are able to learn about and meet unique needs—whether it's being a reading buddy in a classroom, coaching job skills or financial training, providing basic needs for a homeless student, etc. Then, Loving Houston brings church and school leaders together for Leader Luncheons where leaders of existing church-school partnerships can come together to share ideas, network, and support each other.
Overcoming Obstacles
When Hurricane Harvey hit, many churches that already had established school partnerships were able to jump right into relief efforts. In addition, many nonprofits donated gift cards and school supplies to Loving Houston, who in turn distributed them to churches to give to affected families within their partner schools.
Whether it was Hurricane Harvey or a global pandemic, school partnered with churches were able to navigate the challenges with help. Churches hosted food drives, raised funding so students could have chrome books, brought snacks to teachers, and had prayer parades within their schools.
How it Works
In the time leading up to the start of school, churches might help clean up the schools, set up classrooms, or collect school supplies to help students who cannot afford them. Churches can also utilize any medical professionals within their congregations to host health fairs and provide necessary immunizations to students who may not get them otherwise.
Other churches provide volunteers to ride on buses for the first few days to help young and/or new students get acquainted with timing, routes, and simply make things more comfortable in an otherwise intimidating environment. Schools appreciate volunteers that help direct traffic and welcome students during the first days back and are grateful for the help they provide.
If you'd like to learn more or get involved, here are a few suggestions:
Pray for our schools. Loving Houston is one all major social media and frequently shares reminders and ways to pray for students, teachers, administrators, and the churches they partner with.
Attend a 101 Workshop to learn about this process. Those who attend a workshop are not committing to a partnership.
If you’re ready to start a partnership, a coordinator can help you get started after the 101 Workshop.
But don’t feel like you have to do it alone, either. Join another local church to consider how you can mentor students, provide homework help, write letters of encouragement, or however you can serve your local schools. Loving Houston would love to help you get started.
It's National Mentor Month! Marilyn Lee shares a heart-warming story of how one church can impact a community for the better.