Warren County Sheriff’s Office chaplaincy program underway

BOWLING GREEN Ky.-The Warren County Sheriff’s Office is in the process of a major effort. Thanks to the help of what is currently eight spiritual leaders, the sheriff department’s chaplaincy program is underway.

This program involves the religious leaders stepping up to help when it comes to tough news for families. Warren County Sheriff Brett Hightower said one of the reasons for this effort is due to the tough situations that occur in the world of law enforcement.

“Us as law enforcement, we have to come and we have to deal with these situations, we have reports to write, and we have notifications to be made. This is going to be where the community can work together in the best interest of our community,” Hightower said.

WKU police department Chaplain Garry Mitchell said the combined effort of both the sheriff’s department and the religious leaders will break the boundaries of the community and the two groups, meaning the community will be more exposed to both.

“What this does is it connects us to the community as spiritual leaders. What we do is we get to offer as a community of ministry to deal with the body, soul, and spirit. in other words, we won’t just stay in the boundaries of our church buildings or the boundaries of our ministry,” Mitchell said.

Not only is this being done for the community, but the sheriff’s office as well. Pastor Adam Trent of Meadowland Baptist Church said the help offered to the community will also be offered to the sheriff’s office, to ensure their needs are met as well.

“They go through some traumatic things, some very physical things. a lot of it can cause PTSD, things of that nature. we want to make sure that equally the community and the citizens and also the deputies are able to have someone to talk to that’s not judgmental, so that their state of mind and their peace mind body and soul, are all intact,” Trent said.

Hightower said this is just another piece of evidence that the community is stronger when joined together.

“When we work together, we’re going to be stronger. We have resources here, and if we rethink of how we utilize those resources to work more collaboratively for both the warren county sheriff’s office, and for the warren county community,” Hightower said.