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Milwaukee Area Black and White Pastors Seek to Heal Racial Division after Recent Shootings

Pastors of two of the Milwaukee area’s largest churches – one black and one white -- joined together Sunday hoping to lead their congregations in a spirit of reconciliation following last week’s violence.

It was the first Sunday after the deaths of a black man in Louisiana and a black man in Minneapolis - each shot to death by police - and the deaths of five white Dallas police officers, ambushed by a sniper who was African American.

WUWM’s Bonnie Petrie was at the Parklawn Assembly of God church near Sherman Park as the two men preached about pain and unity.

Credit Bonnie Petrie
Bishop Walter Harvey of Parklawn Assembly of God Church near Sherman Park, Senior Pastor Jason Webb of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, and another colleague talk about racial reconciliation before Sunday services at Parklawn.

In a small room on the second floor of Parklawn Assembly of God Church in Milwaukee, Bishop Walter Harvey shared breakfast with Pastor Jason Webb of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield - the spiritual leaders of one predominantly black church in the city and one predominantly white church in the suburbs.

As the two men prepared to speak to the Parklawn congregation, they decided the way forward is through racial reconciliation.

Bishop Harvey says the road to reconciliation does not look like bearing arms and killing police officers. Harvey said, "That is not a Christ-like action. That is not a solution."

The solution, Harvey said, is getting to know each other. Doing life together. Harvey said, "It’s being in a safe environment where we can ask questions of each other, we can learn from each other, we can love each other in community, and that’s beginning to happen. I believe that brings a smile to God’s face, and it causes us to be transformed, not superficially, but in reality."

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Senior Pastor Jason Webb, of the mega-church in Brookfield, says the church can't stand idly by any longer.

"We have been guilty of that for the last several decades. And so we must stand and link arms with our brothers and sister of color and say, you know what? We’re in this together. We will work together on addressing systemic issues that prop up one race and hurt another. We’re going to walk this long road together," he says.

Webbs says his worst fear is that "this is just another week where it is a flash and we have these nice services where we hug each other and then we just go back to our normal lives... We can do better than that. Jesus demands we do better than that."

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