Disciple: Welcoming the Law

Redeemer, Greensboro, is building bridges and relationships with the law enforcement community

By Christine McTaggart

Redeemer, Greensboro, is a church of about 100-plus active souls deeply committed to their community and steeped in history.

They have a long-standing relationship with Greensboro Urban Ministry. Each month, Redeemer collects more than 400 pounds of nonperishable food items for the ministry, in addition to annual financial assistance. Every Tuesday, they collaborate with their fellow Greensboro Episcopalians from Holy Trinity, Holy Spirit and St. Andrew’s, and St. Mary’s, High Point, to host a community breakfast.

Their history is one centered on social justice. During the Civil Rights movement, Redeemer was a place of rest and respite for those active in the cause. It was a place of gathering for meeting organizers. It was also the place where a young Rev. Jesse Jackson, then a student at North Carolina A&T, was arrested in 1963 for organizing and leading a protest; a photo of his arrest on the steps of Redeemer hangs on the wall to this day.

Redeemer is, and always has been, an integral part of the surrounding community. While their love of neighbors is clear, with a history of social justice involvement that includes fighting for civil rights and equality, it is understandable if their relationship with the local law enforcement community has not been intentionally close. But new rector the Rev. Michelle Roach and the congregation are working to change that.

[Image: Police officers (center) and parishioners enjoy a game of cornhole, just one of the activities during the Greensboro Police Department’s National Night Out Redeemer, Greensboro, hosted earlier this August. Photo courtesy of Redeemer, Greensboro]

JUST A HELLO

Roach has some experience with, and the gifts derived from, relationships between faith-based and law enforcement communities. When she arrived to serve in a previous call as priest-in-charge of Christ Church in Longwood, Florida, it was to a church situated next door to the local police department. She asked about the relationship between the department and the church, and was told there wasn’t one.

Unsatisfied with not having a relationship with any neighbor—and a next-door neighbor, at that—she walked across the way and introduced herself. Both the police chief and community liaison officer came out to speak with her and, in that moment, founded a relationship between the two entities in which each learned they could count on the other.

Christ Church participated in the police department’s annual “Barbers, Badges and Bags,” a back-to-school event that offered students in the community haircuts and backpacks, feeding them burgers while there. When another of the department’s summer programs to provide snack bags to youth ran low on supplies, they turned to the church. Roach enlisted the help of another local Episcopal church, which provided funds for the needed food.

The relationship developed to the point that Roach and Christ Church became involved with a program that offered an alternative to juvenile detention. Youth who found themselves in trouble and facing juvenile detention were instead offered court-ordered community service at Christ Church.

“The kids would come in, and some of them were so angry,” remembered Roach. “But they came, and they would do things like clean and weed. I had them usher and help clean up after the fellowship hour. It would take them a number of weeks to achieve [completion of their community service], but in that period of time I would see them just calm down and know that whatever brought them to us, they would never do it again.”

The two partners participated in “Faith & Blue” events, an annual offering of relationship-building between faith and law enforcement communities. These, too, brought gifts through chances to deepen relationships not just with each other but within interfaith communities as well.

All of these experiences and their attendant gifts were the result of simply walking across the way and saying hello. And all of them came with Roach when she arrived at Redeemer.

NEEDING EACH OTHER

Roach sees relationships between faith communities and law enforcement as natural and necessary, as the two share common ground in their respective calls to care for others.

“We need them,” she explained. “We cannot go through this world as it is right now without our police officers. The church is the moral compass of [the officers’] community, and this is where their people are gathering. It’s so important the police offers are supported in their jobs, and it’s important for us, especially the clergy, to know them. We’re so often alone on our church properties, and it’s good to know that if I need to pick up the phone with a problem, they already know who and where I am.”

And the local police departments of Greensboro do know, for just as she did in Florida, when Roach arrived at Redeemer, she immediately began to cultivate relationships. She first met Greensboro’s assistant chief of police at an event at the local community center. The topic was a discussion on concerns around gun violence and what could be done to provide youth alternatives to paths that might find them involved in gun violence. Roach spoke with the assistant chief afterward, offering her support and Redeemer resources wherever they might be helpful. When Roach’s Celebration of New Ministry took place some months later, the assistant chief was in attendance.

In February, Roach attended a meeting of Faith Partners, a community gathering of exactly what it sounds like, sponsored and led by the Greensboro police department. On this occasion, Greensboro’s chief of police was in attendance. When he spoke, he shared his own commitment to his faith and extended an open invitation to all those present, offering to attend any church that wished him to do so, belying the myth that local law enforcement does not want to be part of the communities it serves.

“He is so involved,” said Roach. “He wants to know the community, and he wants his faith-based neighbors involved.”

After the meeting, those in attendance were asked to identify the three areas of most concern to their congregations. For Redeemer, it was their ongoing work with food scarcity, homelessness and church security. They are not alone in that last concern, and it led to an unintentional visit from a local officer.

The officer was responding to a request from another church when he arrived at Redeemer. When Roach assured him she had not initiated a call, he offered, since he was there, to look around Redeemer and its grounds to see if he could help address any concerns they had. Roach said, “Absolutely.”

“He offered some really good suggestions to us,” said Roach. The officer had advice on how to increase safety around some of the issues stemming from unsafe items left in the bushes around Redeemer by unhoused community members, and Roach found additional resources for acting on those recommendations at the next Faith Partners meeting.

The relationship between Redeemer and its law enforcement neighbors continues to grow. Redeemer is in conversation to host Senior Academy gatherings, an initiative of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office that provides senior citizens with information on avoiding scams and elder abuse, how to find help relating to financial matters, and community resources that are available to that particular demographic.

Earlier in August, Redeemer hosted the Greensboro Police Department’s National Night Out, which featured games, ice cream and a voter registration drive. For Roach, it was another opportunity to bring together her church community and law enforcement neighbors, for each to see the other as they really are, and to reinforce the invitation of Redeemer as a place of refuge.

“[Police officers] are children of God,” said Roach. “They are human beings in that uniform. Like everyone else, they’re dealing with life. I’m so concerned about their safety. They [often] have seconds in which to make a decision, and they have to be on all the time. Their mental health has to be top-notch. I’ve told them, come and sit in this church any time you want to come and just be. If you want me to pray with you, I will do that.”

“THAT’S ALL IT TAKES”

“There’s lots of little things we can do as churches to get involved with our local police officers,” Roach said. “They want to help the community, and that’s the thing. Yes, in every group there is a bad apple. But not everyone is the same. We cannot make blanket statements about them, any more than we want them made about us. Everyone is different. Come and get to know us. The people in our church are the people in the police officer’s community. Get to know us, and let us get to know you. That is what building community is all about.”

Roach remains in conversation with her law enforcement neighbors, and she hopes to see her Florida experiences replicated in Greensboro, including participation in Faith & Blue events and the church serving as an alternative to juvenile detention.

But in whatever form the relationship develops, Roach will continue to follow her own advice. “Just walk up to an officer and say, ‘Good morning,’” she said. “Thank them for what they do. Politeness—that’s all it takes.”

Christine McTaggart is the communications director for the Diocese of North Carolina.

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