Growing up the daughter of a police officer, Heather Berry saw first-hand how dedicated her father was to his job. Without fail, she says, he’d put on his uniform, risk his life “to get the job done” and get home safely.
“My dad really took personally the mandate to ‘protect and serve,” says Berry, social action committee director for Set the Captives Free Worship Center (STCF) in Woodlawn, Maryland. “I know how much being a police officer meant to him.”
On Sunday, Berry and other members of STFC will do something that hasn’t always come easy in Black communities: invite police officers into their house of worship. The event is part of Faith & Blue Weekend, a national effort to bridge the divide between law enforcement and communities that have long struggled to trust them.
A Different Kind of Service
The initiative invites officers into houses of worship on the second Sunday in October to pray, talk, and engage with young people — small steps toward building relationships too often defined by fear or tragedy. The goal is to bring law enforcement and the communities they serve closer together through worship, conversation, and connection.
”We want police officers to know our community, and we want the community to know police officers,” Berry says. “So when we interact, it is a positive interaction.”
We want police officers to know our community, and we want the community to know police officers.
HEather Berry, Set the Captives Free Worship Center
A robust and growing congregation, STCF is among around a thousand churches nationwide that are participating in Faith in Blue. The event will be a different kind of service: along with taking questions from the congregation after morning services, in hopes of opening lines of communication with the community, officers will talk and play board games with children and teens in the afternoon.
Faith and Blue was started in 2020 by MovementForward, Inc.. The nonprofit is described on its website as “a modern, inclusive social change organization working to protect, promote, and advance the civil and human rights of all people.”
Stronger Bonds
The idea behind Faith In Blue is to strengthen “the ties that bind officers and residents … if we are to build neighborhoods where everyone feels safe and included,” according to the organization’s website. Faith-based organizations are key, according to the website, “because they are not only the largest community resource in the nation, with 65 million participants in weekly events, but because they are as diverse as our nation.”
Rev. Markell Hutchins, CEO of MovementForward, says Faith in Blue is a simple, low-stakes way to help communities help police.
“Issues around criminal justice and policing are the prevailing issues of our time,” Hutchens says in a statement on the Faith and Blue website. The event, he said, “is an effort like never before to elevate the voices of the American people who recognize that transformation is necessary but law enforcement can’t do it alone.”
For Berry, the event “is real personal for me,” she says. “My father and my pastor’s father were both police officers,” which helped her understand the tension between Black Americans’ historic mistrust of law enforcement and the reality that many officers — including her late father — serve honorably.
“We hear so much about police officers who don’t do the right thing, but I’m grateful for the honor and respect the community had for my father,” Berry says. At STFC, she says, the Faith and Blue weekend, co-led by team members Jeannell Johnson and Kristin Young, “is an opportunity to tap into that.”
Berry says STFC has a healthy relationship with the Baltimore County Police Department, and that connection “makes them work smarter and live safer together,” she says.
Fun and Games
On Faith In Blue Sundays, officers will participate in worship, then answer questions from parishioners. Then, the Youth and Blue social time begins: young people ages 9 to 15 will munch on pizza and snacks, and play games, like Uno, Connect 4, and Monopoly, with the officers.
STCF, which was founded in 2000 by its pastor, Dr. Karen Bethea, is not the only house of worship or community organization that partners with law enforcement departments. Around a thousand churches will participate in the event, according to the Faith In Blue website.
In Harford County, Maryland, the festivities begin with a Trick or Treat trunk or treat celebration on October 10, hosted by the In Washington, D.C., at 11 a.m., on October 12, Metropolitan Police Department officers will worship with the New Image Baptist Church, 1839 Alabama Avenue, S.E.
On October 10, at 11 a.m., there will be a resource fair for unhoused community members at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Numerous activities throughout the country are listed on the events map at faithandblue.org.
