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New Love INC head sees his direction

Logan Patterson stands next to one of the fresh fruit and vegetable refrigerators located in the food pantry at Love In the Name of Christ. Patterson joined the organization on April 10 as its executive director.
Logan Patterson stands next to one of the fresh fruit and vegetable refrigerators located in the food pantry at Love In the Name of Christ. Patterson joined the organization on April 10 as its executive director. Photo by Rebecca Sandlin.

Logan Patterson heard about an opening coming up at Love In the Name of Christ while he was yet serving as the senior pastor of the 509 Community Church in Huntington and thought, “I can’t do that and pastor as well.” Then God showed him how.

Patterson, who began work Monday, April 10, as the new executive director of Love INC, has been a Huntington resident for 10 years, having moved to town from his hometown of Berne when he attended Huntington University. After a hiatus in his education, Patterson obtained a Bachelor of Arts in history and became heavily involved in the 509 Church.

“I made some really great and lasting and impactful relationships down there,” he says. “I kind of just ended up calling Huntington home after that.”

Patterson became a pastoral intern at the 509 Community, becoming the church’s associate pastor and from last August until the beginning of April, he served as the head pastor.

In the meantime, Kyle Metzger, Love INC’s former director of operations, told Patterson that Joey Spiegel was going to step down as the clearinghouse ministry’s executive director. He said he thought Patterson would be a good fit for the job. Spiegel also recommended him for the position.

“I said, ‘That’s all good and well, but I’m pastoring a church – I can’t just leave,’” Patterson recalls. “And within a month I found out that we were going to be ending our ministries there.”

Unfortunately, Easter Sunday was also the last service held at the 509 Church, which has since closed permanently. Nine days later he began his new job at Love INC.

Patterson says he wants to see Love INC grow and flourish as a “parachurch” ministry, not necessarily connected to one single church, but as a group that exists to converge with all the local missions that are often similar but need a lot of people on board to make it successful.

He plans to carry out his goal by developing relationships with area pastors.

“I think that coming from a pastoral background helps me really understand what it is that churches need and what churches can or can’t do as far as being involved,” he says, “and how some of the challenges that come along with finding dedicated volunteers and people who are ready to throw themselves into something and doing that with enough foresight to know if they’re going to be sustainable.”

Another task Patterson wants to accomplish is developing a role in each congregation of a “church ministry coordinator” who would act as a liaison and help communicate the needs of Love INC and develop clear lines of communication when it comes to rounding up volunteers and developing new programs.

“We’ll just have a nice network of folks who can directly interact between the staff here and our ministries, and the ministries of their home church, and pool the resources they have there,” he adds.

Another project on the horizon is a partnership with Matthew 25 Clinic in Fort Wayne, doing videoconferencing of doctor visits. He hopes to get the program up and running in the next couple of months.

“We’ll have one person down here and kind of a Skype setup for a doctor in Fort Wayne,” Patterson explains. “We’re still kind of working the kinks out of the system at this point.”

In the short time that he’s been on the job, Patterson says he wants people to know that the ministry exists to help the church in Huntington, regardless of where they gather on Sunday.

“We want people who are united in Christ to fulfill their missions that their different communities have,” he says. “We’re not trying to do something that’s against the grain, or be competitive, but we want to be here to equip and pull resources for the church in Huntington to embody Christ in our town, and to help people in need and to bless people as the church at large.”

Patterson says people should watch for a new website redesign to be launched in the next few months. In the meantime, he may be reached at the Love INC office at 356-0933.