Rev Rennard White, chairman of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals (centre), explains how the Street Pastor Initiative will work, while Rev Bobby Wilmot of the Covenant Community Church (left) and Rev Devon Dick of the Boulevard Baptist Church listen intently. (Photo: Michael Gordon)

IN an attempt to get the church more involved in fighting crime and violence, a group of local pastors on Monday launched a new scheme, the Street Pastors Initiative, to reach out to troubled individuals and communities.

They will utilise, they said, on-the ground counselling while ministering through trained church leaders who will go into troubled areas on foot.

"Based on the historic role of the church, the church's size, its contacts, its influence, we feel that we have not done everything yet, and we are committing to do more," said Rev Rennard White, chairman of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals.

The initiative is a part of the pastors' Operation GEAR (Gun Eradication And Rehabilitation) campaign, and is patterned off a similar programme now in effect in several rough neighbourhoods in England. Under the initiative, church leaders and pastors will undergo an intensive training process, after which they will go to the places frequented by young people, where they will build relationships in order to identify needs and solutions.

Reverends Bobby Wilmot, Rennard White, Devon Dick and Bishop Herro Blair brought the idea to Jamaica after they all participated in a visit to several church outreach programmes in Britain in their capacity as leaders of clerical associations. Now, the pastors want to replicate the successes of their British counterparts while forging valuable links with church communities across the ocean.

"There have been discussions, government to government, between the UK and Jamaica on trade, on drug control," said Rev Dick of the Boulevard Baptist Church, "but this was an attempt at having a trans-atlantic discussion between an evangelical alliance representing many different denominations to discuss primarily the drug problem and gun violence and what we can do -- Jamaicans co-operating with our UK counterparts in addressing this issue."

The pastors believe that by having church leaders entrench themselves in the communities, they will have more influence in helping the youth stay away from guns and drugs.

"The important thing to recognise is that we appreciate all the efforts of the security forces, but the church has an edge," explained Rev Wilmot, who currently operates a similar youth outreach programme through his Covenant Community Church in Trench Town, St Andrew.

The pastors are now seeking the full endorsement of the five major umbrella organisations that represent churches in Jamaica -- the Jamaica Council of Churches, the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals, Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches, Jamaica Pentecostal Union Apostolic and the West Indies Union of Seventh Day Adventists -- after which the real work will begin.

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