God’s Leading to Help Those in Crisis
by Rev. John I. Owen, (1968, MDiv), Police Crisis Chaplain and Executive Director, The Crisis Chaplain Corps
I began thinking and praying about how I might contribute to the lives of First Responders, particularly police officers, their family members and victims of crimes and accidents, after I rode along with a Chicago PD officer on Chicago’s notorious Southside. God opened doors for me to serve, first as a police chaplain for the Minneapolis Police Department, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the late 1960s and 1970s, where I was privileged to help implement the MPD Police Chaplain Corps while I served as pastor for the First Free Methodist Church and later with The Greater Minneapolis Association of Evangelicals (GMAE).
Later in Chicago, where I served on The Olive Branch Mission Board of Directors with Dr. Howard A. Snyder and as a Free Methodist pastor, 1977-1979, God helped me to convince the Mayor, Jane Byrne, that more chaplains for the 14,000 CPD were needed to assist the one Roman Catholic priest in ministry to people in crisis. She named 8 additional chaplains!
God enabled me to be a co-founder of The International Conference of Police Chaplains (ICPC) in October of 1973. In Washington, DC, eight of us, on the day Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned, formed the ICPC, which has grown to thousands now, on six continents. Thanks be to God! I was selected to serve as its first treasurer. God has graciously allowed me the privilege of helping to recruit and help train many as volunteer police chaplains. I continue to minister, though retired from the Free and United Methodist pastorates, through The Crisis Chaplain Corps, a faith ministry.
***More of John’s story is told in a chapter of Al Palmquist’s book Miracle at City Hall, published in 1974 by Bethany Press.
John, I’ve just received an award for 20 years of service as a Chaplain with the Albuquerque Police Dept.
Rev. Jack Price started the program here in 1969. God bless your work there. Tom Beach ’67 MDiv
Thanks be to God for persons wishing to imitate our Lord Who came from heaven to earth to address us all in our crisis!