This is a research-based course designed to help people better understand how socioeconomic class has affected them. Bridges covers the “hidden rules” of class (poverty, middle, and wealthy) and helps people from all walks of life to better understand and communicate with people from a diversity of backgrounds.

Bridges also assists participants with understanding how to suspend their assumptions so as to begin building meaningful relationships across socioeconomic lines.

Whether you are serving an hour a year or 10 hours a week, in our community or elsewhere, this training is for you!

This is required training for Circle Allies.

Led by nationally certified facilitators through aha! Process, Inc. (www.ahaprocess.com)

Upcoming Date: Postponed, Date TBD

Time: TBD

Location: TBD

Fee: TBD

 

Facilitators: 
Mariam Mengistie*, Executive Director of Missions
Lynette Fields*, Executive Director of Community Transformation

*nationally certified trainers through aha! Process, Inc. (ahaprocess.com)

 

Virtual COPE

A 90-minute interactive online experience, designed to give your organization a glimpse into the lives of low-income families.

Virtual COPE provides an online experience for individuals and organizations to better understand poverty, learn from people making the journey out of poverty, and become a change-maker in their organization. It is a 90-minute virtual experience on Zoom utilizing both large group and breakout rooms.

Participants will make difficult decisions, work together to try and complete their tasks for one simulated week. Includes a debriefing to process experience and explore next steps.

Led by nationally trained facilitators through Think Tank, Inc.

Upcoming Date: TBA

Time: TBA

Location: TBA

 

 

During our current health situation, we are not doing in-person C.O.P.E. events.

In-person Cost of Poverty Experience event is a 3-hour experiential event designed to help participants begin to understand what it might be like to live as a typical low-income family in the U.S. This virtual simulation and debriefing provides a brief glimpse into what it feels like to walk for a month in the shoes of families trying their best to just survive with incomes between 100% and 200% of the federal poverty level.

C.O.P.E. is an invaluable experience for people who, instead of merely talking about poverty as a problem, choose to be part of the solution to end poverty. This training is appropriate for middle school age and older individuals and for everyone serving locally.  

 

A recent Cost of Poverty Experience was featured on the Project Community Program on WESH 2. Click the link below to view.

 

 

 

For more information, visit Poverty Solutions Group.

Want to learn how to better serve people in your life? Dignity Serves teaches a powerful new paradigm of service called ‘dignified interdependence.’ Taught from a Christian perspective, this 6 lesson study will give you a useful toolkit to apply in all areas of your life – home, office, church, and neighborhood. Want to experience less guilt and frustration trying to help people? This training is for you. It has helped thousands of people since it first hit the scene in 2008.  Led by Phil Hissom.

The percentage of children who live in poverty in the United States hasn’t changed in over a generation which means what churches, non-profit groups, and the government are doing to alleviate poverty is not working. This class is designed to help participants RETHINK assumptions we have about poverty and “the poor” so that we can RESET our understanding about the causes of poverty, and then RE-ENGAGE in the way we serve and set expectations for sustainable change.

Participants will cover the “hidden rules” of class (poverty, middle, and wealthy) and help people from all walks of life to better understand and communicate with people from a diversity of backgrounds based on the work of Ruby Payne. Participants will also gain a better understanding of our community transformation vision, how St. Luke’s understands mission from a United Methodist perspective, what the Bible says about poverty, and asset-based development.

This class will meet the requirement for Circles Allies, Family Advocates and others interested in serving in relationship-oriented mission ministries.

Participants will gain a better understanding of our community transformation vision, how St. Luke’s understands mission from a United Methodist perspective, what the Bible says about poverty, and asset-based development.  This course provides a safe environment in which to explore how you understand diversity and serving with people from very different backgrounds. 

Explore ways to balance charity or relief work with initiatives that are relational and measure long-term impact.  Participants will discuss how to move beyond charity and benevolence toward a balance of missions that includes betterment and development. The workshop will discuss mission from a United Methodist and Wesleyan perspective, what the Bible says about poverty, and asset-based development. This course provides a safe environment in which to explore how to understand diversity, the personal filter one takes into the field when serving, and serving with people from very different backgrounds.

Several times a year, we offer a six weeks study of this book. The book is helpful for learning how to serve others in ways that are not harmful, but rather maintain the dignity, independence, and hope of recipients. It provides insight into how to be aware of and check our intentions for undertaking acts of charity. It also provides insight into the complexities of poverty.

Bob Lupton, the author, has more than 30 years of community transformation experience in Atlanta. He wrote this book with the hope of offering tools and inspiration for the development of healthy, community driven programs that produce deep, measurable, and lasting change – transformative charity that produces community development.

To get a copy of this book, contact Amy Winslow at awinslow@st.lukes.org                                                                                                                                           

CQ is the capability to function effectively in a variety of cultural contexts—including national, ethnic, organizational, generational, and many other cultures. Enhance the multicultural understanding and effectiveness of your ministry with this only evidence-based assessment of Cultural Intelligence (CQ). This is for anyone wanting to participate in a global ministry team or serving locally in a cross-cultural setting.

Upcoming Event Date: TBA