Justice Voices Episode 20: Pastor Chris Harris of Bright Star Community Outreach describes the TURN model of community-based, faith-led coalition building to reduce trauma and build safer communities
(Transcript)
Pastor Chris Harris (in two preview clips): [00:00:00] You know, it’s amazing to me that, especially preachers, people always ask me, Pastor Harris, how did you create something where the U. S. and Israel is working together? You created something where African American and Jewish people are working together. You created something where, I mean, they’re blown away on this one, where you got Northwestern and University of Chicago working together.
How, how did you, you got other community-based and faith-based organizations working together. How’d you do it? I said you wanna know if it, that, whether I think those are miracles. They are. But the greatest miracle is getting preachers to work together. Now that my friend, faith leaders working together, that’s a miracle!
So, my goal is to scale up the work that we do. I wanted to stay right here in our local community and prove out that it works. So now we’ve proven out the TURN model – The Urban Resilience Network, TURN – and now the goal is to replicate into other communities. And how do you do that? [00:01:00]
David Risley (Intro): Good questions.
How was it done? How can it be done in other communities? For answers, listen to the rest of this conversation between me, host David Risley, and Pastor Chris Harris, pastor at Bright Star Church in Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood in south Chicago, and also pastor at St. James Church, Chicago.
Most importantly for this conversation, Pastor Harris leads Bright Star Community Outreach, BSCO, a remarkable community-based, faith-led organization devoted to healing and preventing trauma and providing other community services in south Chicago. BSCO is a model of how crime ridden communities, and any other community struggling with trauma and its causes, can turn things around and build healthier [00:02:00] and safer communities.
This is Justice Voices, eye opening stories and solutions about justice, healing, and safer communities.
Introduction of Pastor Harris and Bright Star Community Outreach (02:12)
Pastor Chris Harris, it’s been a while that we’ve been trying to get together. Welcome to our program.
Pastor Chris Harris: Well, thank you so much, David, for having me and it is really, really a pleasure to be with you here today on Justice Voices.
David Risley: Well, we are very happy to have you. So, for those people who don’t know you, you are pretty well known in your part of the south Chicago area because of your pastoring and your community activities, your leadership that you are providing, but for those who don’t know you would you please introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Pastor Chris Harris: Sure, absolutely. Pastor Chris Harris, born and raised on the south side of Chicago in Bronzeville, which is known as the Black Metropolis, where the Great Migration was. Black people were trying to get away [00:03:00] from racism and classism down in the south and they were shipped up here and that’s how my matriarch and patriarch side of my family ended up landing in Bronzeville, where you get gospel music, you get blues, you get jazz and so many other genres. And we’re proud of the great history and culture and heritage of the black metropolis.
I’m a son of the soil of this community. I was born and raised here. I get to pastor in the church that I was born and raised, Bright Star Church, Chicago. And then I pastor a second church in the West Pullman area, St. James Church, Chicago. And that’s really exciting. And then beyond that, I’m the founder and CEO of Bright Star Community Outreach, where we do a lot of violence prevention, trauma counseling, workforce development, and so many other things. And I’m really excited about that work.
Trauma as Carrier of Violence; NATAL Partnership to Reduce Trauma (03:49)
David Risley: Well, we first met back when I was working n the governor’s office as director of public safety policy. And what drew attention to you was the work that [00:04:00] you were doing and you and others that were working with you to deal with the trauma that I have in other episodes characterized as the carrier for violence. If violence were a disease, trauma would be the carrier and crime, violence came to Bronzeville as with so many other neighborhoods.
But you took what was really, to me, struck me as a remarkably unique and effective, intriguing approach to that. And you introduced me to a partnership that you had developed with an organization in Israel named NATAK, N-A-T-A-L. Now that’s an acronym and it’s, would be for a Hebrew phrase, you know, name that I couldn’t pronounce, but can you just tell us the backstory there?
Tell us that story.
Pastor Chris Harris: Sure. I went on an education trip to Israel in December of 2012 [00:05:00] and discovered this place in Tel Aviv called NATAL. And I encourage everybody, listen, you don’t want to die before you go to Tel Aviv, first of all, you know, Tel Aviv is a beautiful place. I’ve been to Israel now seven times and it is amazing.
And when I went there, I discovered that they were focusing on PTSD or trauma for those who live under the constant threat of violence and trauma in that region. Not just the Israelis, but they serve everybody in the country in the region. And I said, wait a minute, while they’re worried about missiles and sirens in Israel in Chicago and other urban communities we’re counting body bags and toe tags every single day.
And so, David, at that time, I think it was more than 1140 people had been murdered in Chicago since January of 2012. And now it’s more than 7500 people who have been murdered in Chicago alone. And that doesn’t include those who have been shot or wounded. And we asked the question, who did or does the trauma [00:06:00] counseling for those families, whether it be the victim’s family or the perpetrator’s family?
In most cases nobody because, David, black and brown people, not exclusively, but specifically don’t really go to counseling for four reasons. They don’t know, trust, or think they can afford counseling. And then number four, the stigma, nobody wants to be labeled crazy, but check it out. They still come and talk to people like me, the faith leader.
So the Lord told me, I want you to identify, train and certify faith and community leaders to provide trauma counseling based on the Israeli model of NATAL. Our friends over at, and it was Mayor Rahm Emanuel at that time who introduced me to the president and CEO of Northwestern Medicine at that time, Dean Harrison, Northwestern, University of Chicago, United Way, CIGNA, MacArthur, and all those other entities came to the table to partner with us to bring this model from Israel.
And it has been amazing. They paid for them to come over five times. They trained three different cohorts of groups of 16 faith and community [00:07:00] leaders. And now David, we have a trauma helpline and more than 50, 000 people in Chicago have been touched with this work. And now we’re going to not only scale it, but replicate it.
Trauma Help and TURN Center (07:10)
David Risley: What does this training look like? What do the services look like? I mean, we talk about trauma informed care. What is that? I mean, some people know exactly what you’re talking about because they’ve been involved in it, but most people, thankfully, never have. And we want to educate them.
Pastor Chris Harris: Yeah, I appreciate that.
And so just think about it. A lot of times we will focus in on violence, right? And violence prevention because we do believe hurting people tend to hurt people. But guess what? COVID was traumatic. The virus, the vaccine and the variants, all traumatic. Then beyond that, divorce is traumatic. Losing a job is traumatic. Losing a loved one, family members, parents in the hospital, trauma. It is a very, very real thing. And that which affects you [00:08:00] both emotionally, psychologically as well as spiritually, trauma.
A lot of times when you talk about trauma centers, they’re talking about the pain and the injuries that you face physically. But who addresses the pain and the injuries that you have psychologically or emotionally in your feelings or even spiritually losing faith in God and man. And so this trauma informed approach not only touches on what affects people, but how they feel about what has affected them. And this has allowed us to have our trauma helpline.
Now we have a lot of folks that are calling in by thousands, 833 TURN, T-U-R-N, 1 2 3 is the phone number that people can call the TURN Center. And TURN is an acronym for The Urban Resilience Network. And so we’re really excited about the fact that we are getting into the pit [00:09:00] that people feel that they are in. We’re not showing sympathy, but we’re absolutely exhibiting empathy to say, hey, even if we can’t change your circumstance, you don’t have to be alone in your circumstance.
Trauma in High Crime Communities (09:12)
David Risley: You know, just to highlight why it’s important, what you’re talking about is, you had mentioned previously PTSD, post traumatic stress syndrome, which is a term that we usually use with combat, actual live combat, veterans, people who have been through some extremely traumatic circumstances. But there were studies at, among others, at Emory University and Yale that found that rates of PTSD among residents of some high crime neighborhoods is higher than that among combat veterans.
And this is particularly impacting young people who grew up in an environment in which part of their reality, the world around them is, you know, fear of, are [00:10:00] they going to make it to school? Are they going to make it back? And this, of course, this would tend to occupy their minds while they’re at school and maybe, cause them not to have the educational experience that they need to really succeed in life.
So, you’re really going to a root cause, not just a violence, but of a lot of ancillary impacts that that violence has, that PTSD has, o n children, on adults, in communities, in relationships, in marriages, in home life. It’s a whole package.
Pastor Chris Harris: Well, let me, let me say this here. Here is, here’s the reality. If you sign up to be in the armed services, you know that you’re going into combat at some point. You’re trained before you go into combat.
On the south side of Chicago, nobody gives you a warning that there’s a bullet getting ready to fly. Nobody gives you a bell to say, hey, get inside. But because a drive-by shooting is getting ready to take place, [00:11:00] many times you’re caught off guard. You don’t expect it. And that is traumatic all by itself, just knowing that I live in an environment where it is possible that anything can happen in any given moment.
Let me give another contrast to what happens in Chicago or in Bronzeville versus what happens in Israel. At least there is a siren. It shouldn’t be happening. Danger shouldn’t be there. There should not even be an imminent threat. But the reality is if a missile comes over, there is at least a 15 second warning that they have in Israel. They actually have it on their apps, on their phones to say, hey, there’s a missile coming in.
Do you know how many people would be alive if we had a 15 second warning?
Right. And so the reality is being caught off guard all by itself. Nobody kind of prepares to get married, then get [00:12:00] divorced. That’s traumatic. You know, nobody prepares for your heart to stop beating and you have a heart attack. It’s traumatic. And so that which catches you off guard can affect you worse than things you were prepared and trained to go into. So that’s just a little bit of a contrast that I just wanted to make.
Bright Star Community Outreach (BSCO) (12:19)
David Risley: Well, you mentioned Brightstar Community Outreach, BSCO. Now there’s the Brightstar Community Church, or Brightstar Church rather, and then there’s Brightstar Community Outreach, which are not the same thing.
One’s the, BSCO is a NGO, a not for profit organization that you created to deliver services and other sorts of activities. And it’s really an impressive organization that, as that’s developed. Could you tell us more about BSCO?
Pastor Chris Harris: Yeah, sure. I can. And so thank you for making the distinction, right. And so, again, I pastor two churches, Bright Star Church, Chicago – people can [00:13:00] go to our website, BrightStarChurchChicago.com. They can also go to my second church, SaintJamesMinistryChicago.com. And we worship together right now every Sunday at Kenwood High School at 10 o’clock right in the Hyde Park area, right adjacent to Bronzeville. But Bright Star Community Outreach is our outreach arm of our ministry, founded the organization.
It’s a, it’s not a faith-based institution, it’s a faith-led institution. We have more than 115 employees that work for me every day, full time, part time doing the trauma counseling, Behavioral Health Department. Thank you for featuring Deanna in one of your shows to talk about the work that we do with NATAL and trauma counseling. [Note: See episode 21]
We have workforce development that we focus on giving people training for jobs, giving them jobs and financial literacy. We also focus on health and wellness, the social determinants of health, and even beyond that [00:14:00] mentorship and education parenting. It’s really, really exciting the work that we get to do.
And so Bright Star Community outreach, people can go to BrightStarCommunityOutreach.com and learn more about what we’re doing. And that work has now literally touched tens of thousands of people. And not only are we Bright Star Community Outreach, an agency by ourself, but the United Way came in and made us the lead agency for what’s called the Greater Bronzeville Neighborhood Network.
And David, what we call Greater Bronzeville, is everything 67 South, 22nd North, Lakeshore Drive, Dan Ryan, right? And so we have built a 70-plus community-based, school-based, faith-based organization, collaborative, to make sure that we all work together. One band, one sound. Bold goals, collective impact. And that has been really, really the lifeblood of what we do, building collaboration. And it’s just awesome to have great [00:15:00] globally respected institutions like Northwestern Medicine, University of Chicago Medicine, United Way and others helping us to do this great work.
Community Partners and Support (15:07)
David Risley: You mentioned these partners. And, tell us the role that these partners like the University of Chicago, you mentioned Northwestern Hospital, tell us what they do and, and how that came to happen. Because I suspect that when you started off, I mean, when you started off on this, what you’ve described it as being today, it, there wasn’t a whole lot of help, but you got help. Tell us about that.
Pastor Chris Harris: Yeah. I’m really grateful for it. And, and really if, you got to give, you know, honor to where honor is due. It was absolutely Mayor Rahm Emanuel, right? He came to visit Bright Star and I had already started the organization and we first started off by just doing after school programming and then it morphed [00:16:00] from there.
Actually, Bright Star Community Outreach started. with something called prayer around the school. The first Saturday of every month, when Derrion Albert was killed at Fenger High School and he was hit over the head by a two by four. And, you know, I said that they took prayer out of the school, but even though they took prayer out of the school, we can, they can’t stop us from praying around the school.
And the first Saturday of every month, we would pray around the school, David. And, I’ll never ever forget from nine o’clock until 10 o’clock. And we still do that right now, 16 years later, my friend, and it’s amazing. I don’t care how hot it is, how cold it is, no matter what the weather is, first Saturday of every month, nine to 10, we’re out there praying around the schools.
And we were walking and on our way to the school that’s adjacent to pray and a grandmother came out and she brought a grandson and she said, listen, I need you to pray for this boy. I prayed for him. And then afterwards she said, listen, Reverend, we need these churches to do more than pray. I said, well, what do we need?
She said, we need some [00:17:00] progrums. Not programs, progrums. And I said, okay, what do we need? We started the after school program. She said you need to mentor and educate, and we started doing that. And then DCFS gave us our first contract and we were able to become a family advocacy center for the Department of Children and Family Services.
And then it started to morph from that. And then when I went to Israel in December of 2012, it was after that in 2013, Mayor Rahm Emanuel came to visit and I told him what my vision was. He connected me to Northwestern and I shared that with the Northwestern president and CEO. And they said, we want to come in and help.
And I said to the folks at the University of Chicago, say, hey, listen, Northwestern is getting ready to help me to develop what’s now called the TURN Center. And you guys are in my backyard and it’s going to look real bad for them to help me from downtown and you’re right here. And they came to the table.
They helped us to build, they helped us with capacity building. Right? How do you, because I’m just doing ministry. I was just doing the right thing, but not [00:18:00] necessarily the right way. So they helped us to build capacity. They came in and funded us and has given us millions of dollars for infrastructure. And by the way, we always need more because we’re always doing more.
They sat on our board, our ops teams. They helped us with our strategic planning. And even beyond that, logic modeling, that’s not what the community really knows how to do. So they came in to be the scaffolding around what we were doing. And they didn’t try to helicopter in and take over. They said, we want to be the wind beneath your wings.
And guess what, David? All these years later, they’re still with us, just re-upped on the funding, and they’re giving more because we’re doing more, and I’m grateful for the partnerships.
Coalition Building in the Faith Community (18:43)
David Risley: Okay, now, I’m vice president of the Greater Springfield Interfaith Association. And I look to the story that you’re telling there as being a model for others like us, who, you have a lot of [00:19:00] church and other organizations, people of faith in organizations that want to help and, and yet they’re not, we and others like us, are not naturally together.
So we, we try to pull together and do something unitedly. Now, when you did that, I mean, pastors get paid by their congregations, and there’s a certain amount of competition for congregations up there in Chicago, and you’re – right? – and you have, you have been successful in bringing together, building a coalition. Talk to us about what it takes to build a coalition of people who might otherwise be in competition with each other.
Pastor Chris Harris: Yeah, I really appreciate this question, seriously, because, you know, it’s amazing to me that, especially preachers, people always ask me, Pastor Harris, how did you create something where the U. S. and Israel is working together? You created something where African [00:20:00] American and Jewish people are working together. You created something where, I mean, they’re blown away on this one, where you got Northwestern and University of Chicago working together.
How, how did you, you got other community-based and faith-based organizations working together. How’d you do it? I said you wanna know if it, that, whether I think those are miracles? They are, but the greatest miracle is getting preachers to work together. Now that, my friend, faith leaders working together, that’s a miracle!
But here it is, we tell them everything here is about collaboration, right? And don’t come preaching to me about unity, but you are not a good living example of that. Even the Bible talks about one can chase a thousand, two can put 10,000 to flight. I mean, God is God and He still used help: the Son and the Holy Spirit.
So, unity, right, is really what it’s all about. And common unity. If we can take the time to focus on where we [00:21:00] agree and not stay divided because of where we disagree, then guess what? I think we’ll see a real shift and a change, not only in our thinking, but in the way that we serve humanity together. So it took a tremendous amount of humility.
It, it allowed me to appreciate having more seats at the table for other people to come and sit at. Now, when you get through, it ain’t about you. You got to be willing to accept the ideas of other people. And you also got to understand that you’re not the smartest person in the table, at the table. Let me just tell you this: people who are insecure will never ever partner with other people. And I believe in collaboration, we’re better together. Every time we meet, I say we’re better together. And it has proven out to work. So what we’ve done is created this TURN model that we want to replicate. It’s working. And we have [00:22:00] data from the university of Chicago.
Results — Crime Reduction Data (22:01)
Check this out, David. We have now data that says, because of our work collaboratively, we have a 17 percent reduction in shootings in our area, a 14 percent reduction of assaults in our area, a 12 percent reduction of robberies in our area. Who can argue with the data?
And we also have to understand that funders – the philanthropic, the corporate, the government communities – when it comes to funding work, they no longer want to fund one-offs. They want to fund collaboratives. And so, if we get to the place where we make room for other people, then we will all be able to make a much bigger impact. And nobody can argue with the data.
And if you’re gonna ask people to write a check, here’s what I always tell people: you shouldn’t ask for dollars without data, you shouldn’t ask for money without metrics, and you shouldn’t try to expand without evaluation. There needs to be a return on [00:23:00] the investment and we need to hold everybody accountable.
Coalition Building — Sharing the Benefits (23:02)
David Risley: Well, one of the things that impresses me here as you build a coalition is you haven’t made it about you. You’ve made it about the cause. About the impact, about the community. And by doing that, you’re able to bring people together who might otherwise compete to stand on common ground because they share a common interest.
Pastor Chris Harris: That’s right. That’s exactly right. We, here’s what I always say and also make sure the other leaders and team members of Bright Star Community Outreach say: we are convener and not competitor. It was Julia Stasch at the MacArthur Foundation, we were presenting to her and she asked me, she said, Chris, what keeps you awake at night?
I said, what keeps me awake at night is the fact that I’ve built a 70-plus community based, faith based, school based, collaborative, and I don’t have any carrots to give to them. No money. It was all based on trust and relationship. And you know, Stephen Covey’s book, he said, [00:24:00] uh, trust moves at the speed of relationship, and relationship moves at the speed of trust, right?
And so, here’s what I said to everybody. If you come to the table, because funding is like a hungry, hungry hippos game. I know I’m telling my age a little bit, right? The hungry, hungry hippos game. You throw, funders would throw one marble out there and everybody tries to grab it. But the problem is only one get it and everybody else gets disappointed.
But I said to them, if we come to the same table and collaborate and have one common vision and vision is foresight with insight based on hindsight. Right. If we have one collective vision, allow us to be the convener and not the competitor. More money will come. And guess what happened? It worked. Julia Stasch and the MacArthur, MacArthur Foundation gave us 1 million for the collaborative.
And guess what? The Lord told me, I want you to give most of it away. And we were able to give more than $624, 000 [00:25:00] of that $1 million to the other partners. 15 of the agencies were able to be fueled because they came to the table and we partnered. And that’s how we got the results that we’ve got.
Partnership. That’s the only thing that I believe works.
Vision for the Future — Replicating the TURN Model in Other Communities (25:16)
David Risley: Well, if we could can that somehow and export that all over, we’d be a better world. Now, so let’s turn to that, a better world. You are making a better world in Bronzeville, the greater Bronzeville area. What is your vision for the future? Where do you want to take this?
Pastor Chris Harris: Yeah. Thank you for that. So, my goal is to scale up the work that we do. I want it to stay right here in our local community and prove out that it works. So now we’ve proven out the TURN model – The Urban Resilience Network, TURN – and now the goal is to replicate into other communities. And how do you do that?
First of all, you find what we call a community champion. In [00:26:00] Bronzeville, greater Bronzeville, I’m that person. Who’s the person with influence that the community trust? Secondly, you gotta find a community anchor. That’s an agency that already exists that other leaders trust and bring everybody to that table.
Do a community assessment and from that, find out what it is that the community needs. Now, here’s one of the approaches that we took. When you ask what’s next, taking this model all across the city, the state, the region, and our country and into some other parts of the world, because the model works, just got to shift some of the nuances. But we didn’t just do it because I was in prayer and the Lord told me how to do everything.
The Lord told me to talk to the community and we used a data driven approach through surveys. It was the CDC that gave us a 6 million dollar grant and they said, we want you all to use this to talk to the community. I said, [00:27:00] hold on. You can keep all of your money, all 6 million of those dollars. And it’s not like we did not need it.
But I said, but what you won’t do is come in and treat the black community like lab rats. Because when you talk about metrics, when you talk about all of these other things, the community needs to trust. And I said, if you allow us to own it – we don’t need white people and other people to helicopter in and save us – give us the training, the tools and the resources.
We’re pretty resilient people, black and brown folks. We built this country for free. We can save ourselves. And I said, keep all of your money because you’re not going to come in here, do research on us and then schlep out and go and talk to a table full of white people about the problems that black people are having.
No, no, no, not over here. Give us 40 percent of those dollars to implement evidence based, place based, practice based programs so we can move the needle that you all already know exists. And they gave us the $6 million.
And so [00:28:00] we surveyed 19 schools in Bronzeville – that was 2,500 students were eligible – we went through the IRB and RRB process, 19 schools in Bronzeville in 2015. We got a 72% response rate. In 2018, we surveyed 22 schools. We got an 81 percent response rate. It blew everybody away because they were wondering, how did you get black people, especially since the days of Tuskegee and, you know, COVID, — that’s why people didn’t want to take, because they don’t trust – but because it was black owned, black driven, and black led.
Listen, here’s what I said. It needs to be owned by us, driven by us, and led by us, but not just us. That’s where Northwestern, University of Chicago, United Way, and others came to be the wind beneath our wings and helped us.
And when I tell you, because of tens of thousands of community residents participating in our surveys, we were able to get the resources [00:29:00] that we needed for the residents within our reach. And I’m hoping that we can find other communities that want to do the same thing so that we can bring the TURN model in their community.
David Risley: Pastor Chris Harris, add Springfield, Illinois to your list because, and there are other communities like us, we, as you, as you move your way south, keep moving south, you know, south of I-80 and get down into the, the rest of Illinois, I’ll tell you, we will welcome you with open arms and your message and what you’ve accomplished, your model.
Now, how do people find out more about you? More about, Bright Star Community Outreach.
Pastor Chris Harris: Sure. They can go to our website, https://brightstarcommunityoutreach.com. They can also go and find us on Twitter. They can find us on TikTok. They can find us on all social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, and like I said, going to the website. But also beyond that, I [00:30:00] would want them to come into the community right, right here in Bronzeville.
TURN Center (29:40)
But here’s what they can do. What’s most exciting to me is as we laid that foundation, the dream was a community center. And the elementary school that I used to attend – Carter G. Woodson Elementary School right here in Bronzeville across the street from Bright Star Church – it closed down. Guess what happened, David. On Juneteenth, on September on Juneteenth, June 19th, we were able to cut the ribbon and reopen a 68,000 square foot closed school, and now it’s called the TURN Center. And I’m so excited about it.
We were able to have thousands of people to come there and cut the ribbon. The mayor was there. Our board was there. The president and CEOs of Northwestern, University of Chicago, United Way, MacArthur, all of those folks were there to cut the ribbon along with the community.
And [00:31:00] the exciting part about that is a few weeks later the White House heard about it and they decided to come. So, Secretary Pete Buttigieg came and we gave him a tour of the facility because they’re like, wait a minute, this is the kind of model and all of our local Congress, people, senators, our state reps, all the people, they showed up to be with us to talk about how this model is not only working in this local area, but also how it can be replicated other places. And so I’m really, really excited to invite people to do what the mayor did, do what the Congress-people did, do what the Secretary of Transportation did: come and visit us. And that’s how you learn more about bright star community outreach.
And if you’re around on a Sunday, come on and hang out with us. Go to our websites, brightstarchurchchicago.com, saintjamesministrieschicago.com. And David, if you ever come visit us on a Sunday at 10 o’clock, listen, we do a lot of jumping, we’re a pentecostal church, [00:32:00] wear your Fitbit brother, you’re gonna do some dancing.
David Risley: Well, I sure appreciate that. Pastor Harris, I have just loved our friendship and relationship. We, we, we just met, I mean for the first time, years ago, for not very long, but there’s just, I’ve just felt a connection and I really appreciate that. Appreciate your sharing. Now, I know you’ve got an appointment, you got to be getting going.
Upcoming Episode About BSCO Behavioral Health Department (32:24)
And I really appreciate the opportunity, prior to this conversation, we recorded some, a conversation with Deanna Perez, who’s the clinical director for the Behavioral Health Department of Bright Star Community Outreach. And even though we recorded that before this, that’ll be the episode to follow it. So, people who are listening, if you want to learn more about what’s being done by the Bright, Bright Star Community Outreach at the TURN Center, listen to the next episode.
Thank you, Pastor Harris. God bless you.
Pastor Chris Harris: Thank you and God bless you. And thank you for being willing to feature our work. Listen, man, we’re down like two flat [00:33:00] tires, brother, you stuck with me.
For More Information (33:02)
David Risley (outro): For more information about bright star community outreach, go to their website at https://brightstarcommunityoutreach.com – that’s all one word: brightstarcommunityoutreach.com — and help share his message of hope and healing by sharing this episode and the episode to follow with your faith and other community leaders, as well as your friends.
Lead out in your community by sharing the model for change Pastor Harris describes. In doing so, you will be a change agent yourself.
I refer to the episode to follow because it features a conversation with Deanna Perez, Clinical Director of the Behavioral Health Department of Bright Star Community Outreach at their TURN Center.
Call to Action (33:55)
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