Pastors can help
Editor, The Commercial:
Violence and homicides are happening in Pine Bluff, Little Rock, and around this nation, and the victims and perpetrators are becoming younger. Understand clearly the need for engaging, increasing, and involving clergy in these challenged communities where crime is prevalent. Now is the time for the church to take a stand to address this spiritual battle.
This is from a pastor’s perspective, a crime prevention practitioner with more than two decades of dealing with crime and leading the development of two national crime prevention strategies for Pine Bluff.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Marches, big time entertainers, food, fun, and games serve a temporary and practical purpose, but crime prevention must take a sustainable approach designed to recruit committed volunteers to work after the fun and games have ceased.
Today, people are starving to live in a safe community, and youngsters want to feel safe on school campuses. The Pine Bluff Faith Community Coalition, Ministerial Alliance Pastors on Patrol (POP) on school campuses have produced tangible results noticed nationwide, i.e., the Queen Sugar TV program has portrayed the POP model in their TV program Episode 7.
School districts nationally contact us; others in Hot Springs, Little Rock, etc., ask for the secret sauce used in Pine Bluff schools. The 400 Years of African American History Federal Commission has placed our work as Pine Bluff pastors on their national website at www.400yaahc.gov, which catalyzes these questions.
Forty prominent Black pastors in Los Angeles recently launched a 2023 “Apology Tour” utilizing the Pastor on Patrol model in South Los Angeles. The tour aims to restore the connection between churches and the Black community.
Faith and Community Empowerment Strategies (FACES) is a strategy that focuses on local churches’ leadership. Ministers are spiritual leaders, the ones you only reach out to for help to deal with spiritual problems. However, you don’t look to them to help with crime problems because of their skills in crime prevention, which must change.
Pastors are the ones the community looks to for spiritual advice and direction; however, a nugget here and there in crime prevention can help with skills that address crime problems. One reason ministers are less eager to engage within their community is the need for more knowledge. Additional knowledge can change behavior, and better behavior changes the community in which we live.
This summer, clergy members have their associations, conferences, and conventions; most, if not all, of their gatherings, don’t always address community crime prevention. As communities organize to impact change for their neighborhoods, i.e., community development and crime prevention, the same approach is for Baptist, Methodist, and Church of Christ in statewide conferences that engage clergy.
We recognize the influence and ability possessed by clergy members to change the moral direction of an individual’s life. The effects of clergy members can potentially move a neighborhood out of poverty into a better quality of life.
The Rev. Leon Sullivan exemplifies this success as he organized in the ’60s to train Black kids in his church to achieve, and later the organization became a premiere Community Development Corporation (CDC) that trained many minority workers and developed their manufacturing enterprise.
Another way clergy could utilize the church would be a place for job training and resume preparation, among other things. Even the success of Rev. Sullivan makes a strong reference point. With this in mind, FACES would encourage ministers to share power with female pastors, clergy members from smaller congregations, and different denominations to build a more robust “ministerial alliance” to advocate community building, economic development, and crime prevention just as progressives sought explanations and responses to poverty in local communities years earlier.
Why can’t clergy members become educated and empowered to advocate against deteriorating housing and poverty, and for economic development and crime prevention? The task will be challenging; however, the benefit to congregations will be beyond measure. The FACES project will result in increased assets, reduced crime, and restored pride in the neighborhood where these churches are. Clergy-promoting neighborhood building and new homes through CDCs can create neighborhood jobs and help people escape poverty due to clergy and church initiatives.
Thus, coming together as clergy and using their influence to focus on crime prevention and economic development can create businesses that sustain the community, provide employment and reduce crime. Furthermore, it has become apparent that additional tools are needed to organize, plan and educate the Faith Community regarding the clergy’s power to influence economic development and neighborhood crime prevention.
There are several things clergy members can do to help reduce crime, e.g., encourage other pastors in their associations and alliances to develop and deliver sermons on respect for life, the impact homicides have on family, friends, and community, hold special public prayer meetings to voice opposition against crime and violence, organize and host three or four major town hall meetings to discuss crime and violence in the community and economic development.
Pastors should meet with law enforcement officials regularly for updates and general information. These meetings can be held at different churches to allow each pastor an opportunity to host a crime prevention session, i.e., Coffee with the Chiefs. Clergy can assist officers with domestic violence and other volatile family situations. Establishing and placing crime boxes in the rear of churches for individuals to write and submit “privately” suspicious and criminal activity within their neighborhood engages clergy as proactive members in reducing crime. Community economic development impacts the area by stabilizing and stimulating job creation, ultimately reducing crime.
Rev. Jesse C. Turner, president,
Pine Bluff Faith Community Coalition Ministerial Alliance