Danny Lynchard's Kevo

Tulsa C O M M U N I T Y S P I R I T Magazine
O C T O B E R 2 0 0 5
POST-KATRINA
Hands of compassion

Tulsa chaplains provide
spiritual and emotional
strength to evacuees
B Y T A R A LY N N T H O M P S ON

They've lost their homes, their possessions.

It's gone - grandmothers quilt, that favorite
lucky shirt, the pictures from the last family
vacation. Some have even lost their family.
But the one thing Katrina could not destroy,
not with unimaginable wind velocity or brutal
rain, not with flooding or sheer force, has
been their faith.

For the most part, this catastrophe has
driven them deeper into their faith, said
strong*Danny Lynchard/strong*, Executive Director for the
Tulsa Police/Fire Chaplaincy Corps. Every
day two chaplains drive to Camp Gruber to
provide emotional and spiritual encouragement
to the Katrina evacuees. Their faith is
the one thing they brought with them. It is
their attachment to home.

By the time the evacuees are settled into
Camp Gruber, they've been told where to
sleep, what to eat, what to wear, even the
environment to care for their children has
been previously decided. And though they
are grateful, Danny said, the feeling of lost
control is overwhelming. Their lives are no
longer their own.

Once you lose power over everything in
life, you seek something to put everything
back under control. The only power big
enough is God, said Danny, who has been
inundated with stories from the evacuees
about Gods presence in their lives.

One of those evacuees, a 72-year-old man
wanting to share his own thanksgiving. He
had been standing on the roof of his home,
water covering his ankles, for two days when
rescuers arrived. He had sat in water, slept
in water, stood in filthy water waiting for
salvation.

"God saved me from the water", the man
told Danny.

Many have their own personal reflections
about the disaster they are trying to sort
through, make sense of, and finally under-
stand.

New Orleans was a sin city, said one
evacuee, a prostitute in The Big Easy, and I
was part of that. It looked like God had had
enough of that.

Danny said the chaplains are not there for
judgment but to show love. When Jesus saw
the multitudes, sick and in need, scripture
says he was moved with compassion. Danny
said that is exactly what the chaplains are
there to provide.

"What God says in their own heart is
between them and God. I let them work
that out", he said.

"The Voice of God", Danny said, "is not only
speaking to those directly impacted by Katrina
but those indirectly, telling them to rise
and help in a time of trouble.

What God is speaking is compassion and
people are answering the voice. Churches
have been tremendous where the government
couldn't do it", Danny said. Churches
have brought food, brought clothing. Its a
tremendous statement of the churches in
America.

The evacuees are not the only ones weary,
seeking encouragement. Danny said many of
the volunteers, police officers, and Red
Cross workers have shown signs of stress
and exhaustion over the last few weeks.

People will pull the chaplains aside and
say, "Oh just pray for me. I'm just so tired",
Danny said. They do not, however, quit.

The general emotions there at Camp
Gruber, despite the distress and upheaval,
have been of thanksgiving. A 50-year-old
male evacuee said it best, Danny repeated.
He came up to me and said, "God bless you
chaplain. God has blessed me in Oklahoma,
blessed me a lot here. I've been through
some rough times, but He has been there the
whole time."

http://www.communityspiritmagazine.com/files/200510.pdf

The Vigil of Love for Missing and Murdered Children
November 22nd, 2008
Fellowship Hall of Town and Country Church
1055 N Garnett Between Pine and Admiral
Tulsa, OK

Guest Speaker: Eastman Curtis
Tulsa Police Dept Chaplain: Danny Lynchard
News Media Coverage

Presented by The Joseph Adetula Foundation

Lot's of food
Balloon Raising
Fingerprint Kits for Children

Bring poster of your loved one and wear their T-shirts if you have one. Bring their pictures and their stories. This is a gathering in memory of our lost loved ones. It is also a gathering of the many families who have walked in similar shoes. We are many families with one voice.

Thanks, Catherine

www.josephadetulafoundation.org

Sun September 21, 1986
Prayer Ministry Targets Police Officers

by Glen Bayless
The Oklahoman Archives

Tulsa pastor Danny Lynchard is an unassuming former prison chaplain whose ministry to police officers in five years encompasses more than 100 U.S. cities.

He calls the mission "Peace Officers Prayer Partner," dedicated to enlisting at least two parishioners from congregations to pray daily for the safety and the stressful lives of officers on patrol.

Lynchard says church members in Tulsa, where the program originated, now number nearly 1,400 who are committed to nearly 700 officers in the city and neighboring areas.

There are chapters from California to the east coast. Rev. Stephen Hanna, a Presbyterian pastor from Modesto, Calif. related his participation in the program at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington earlier this year. Hanna has lined up prayer partners, and rides regularly in the right front seat of patrol cars with officers he regards as his own parishioners.

Lynchard's goal is to recruit 30,000 prayer partners nationwide for 15,000 police.

His own small congregation in Jenks supports his work. His pay is $16,000 a year which he says suffices with some help from donors.

In return for prayer partners, the police visit churches regularly and give their experiences on patrol as well as their testimony of faith.

Lynchard has learned a lot about police through living with officers, riding in their squad cars, and ministering to them and their families when called upon.

"I see too many of these public servants subjected to a view of society that few of us in our ivory towers and immaculate cathedrals ever knew existed," he said in an interview.

Many police are suspicious of citizens they believe are uncaring, and too often quick to label officers as brutes ever ready to intimidate and even injure the innocent.

Officers think in terms of "them and us", he said, and often crudely refer to the public as "mutts and maggots."

They bravely talk boast that they do not need outside help, that they "take care of their own."

Lynchard has found the opposite to be true. Officers and their families who are often isolated yearn for support.

They are continuously under stress and burnout contributing to anxiety that breeds alcoholism and even suicide.

Lynchard says the suicide rate among police is far above normal, and divorce and alcoholism are almost frequent results of stress.

"I find the divorce rate to be very high for many reasons, mostly job-related stress that most of them do not even realize exists," he said. "They seem to sit back and laugh while it slowly takes its toll on their lives and homes. Alcoholism is also no stranger, to many it becomes a close companion.

"Their job is such that they see only the bad guys. So with a warped view of society burnout becomes as common as the cold who really cares?"

He said the hard-to-convince have an attitude that the public will accuse police of persecution under any and all circumstances.

"So they say, 'let's just ride around and don't do anything, answering only those calls we have to,"' Lynchard said. "All they see are bad people."

Lynchard went to the Tulsa mayor in 1981 to get a list of officers who might be part of the prayer program. He had been a chaplain at the Mississippi state prison before going to Bible college in California and then becoming pastor of the Interfaith Christian Center in Jenks.

He said at the outset of the prayer partner program he was "more tolerated than appreciated."

The idea was so simple to recruit at least two prayer partners for every officer on the force, he said.

"If prayer really changes things, I thought, surely there are hundreds of private citizens willing to be a prayer partner on behalf of those who risk their lives to serve," Lynchard said. "The Bible teaches believers to respect authority and to pray for those in authority."

He went to squad meetings to meet the officers and began riding with them on patrol.

Officers began to accept prayer partners, he said.

"I stood amazed at the results," he said. "Officers began speaking in local churches. The overall public view of peace officers began to change as the news media talked and printed our story. Our office began receiving calls from all over 100 cities altogether.

"Police departments began reporting a boost in moral and rapport between the agency and the community."

Lynchard is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor and an assistant chaplain in Tulsa. He said there are 22 other assistant chaplains serving the Tulsa police force, all volunteers.

He has raised money for those in need, visited families of officers who have been injured in the line of duty and those who have despaired and taken their own lives.

One of those had been honored as police officer of the year, but who failed to overcome a sense of guilt over a trivial misunderstanding with another officer.

The suicide rate is six times as many as are killed in the line of duty and one of three officers are divorced after two years on the job, he said.

There are chapters in Ardmore and Sapulpa in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City police do not participate in the program although the department knows about it and some churches in Oklahoma City have inquired about starting a prayer ministry.

Jack Poe, chaplain of the Oklahoma City police department and the 45th Infantry Brigade of the Oklahoma National Guard, said police chiefs over the years have had a policy prohibiting the release of names of officers outside the department.

He said it's a matter of privacy and separation of church and state.

The department encourages officers to get involved in their own churches. Poe said he makes hospital calls on officers and their families and rides with police on duty, perhaps 300 hours a year. He is supported by the Capital Baptist Association and Baptist home missions board and regards the police beat as his parish."Some police would appreciate prayer partners, but others would be very upset if their names were released," he said. "Our percentage of believers is higher than in the general public." BIOG: NAME:

Archive ID: 282060

by Glen Bayless

Tulsa Police Officers Memorial Dedicated
Friday March 04, 2005 6:57pm Reporter: Bill Mitchell Posted By: Kevin King

Tulsa - Fallen Tulsa police officers are remembered with honor. A police memorial has been nine years and 400-thousand dollars in the making. Now, the dream to honor those who have died in the line of duty is finally a reality.

The monument, entitled "With My Life If Need Be," shows an honor guard officer giving a flag to a little girl after a police officer's funeral.

There have been 39 such funerals in Tulsa since 1917. And, each one's name, picture and devotion to duty will be displayed in this memorial.

[] Former Tulsa county District Attorney S.M. "Buddy" Fallis says these fallen heroes were great human beings. Police chaplains and other volunteers worked tirelessly to make this happen.

[b]Police chaplain Danny Lynchard[/b] calls the memorial a fitting tribute to the men and women who lost their lives protecting others.

"When you come into the police department, you're told you're family," [b]Lynchard[/b] says. "This is what we said through the years. We've never forgotten that pledge, never forgotten that promise. And you will always be a member of the family of the Tulsa police department."

Officer Bert Slay died in a traffic accident in 1986. His sister, Hope Kelly, drove in from Chicago for the dedication. Bert Slay's widow Marilyn Rains, calls the monument a fitting tribute.

"They've done a great job on it," she says. "It will even be better when they get all the phases done on it."

She has a son in college studying law enforcement. He wants to be a police officer like his late father, wants to take the sacred oath of a police officer and live by those words -- With My Life If Need Be.

Police are still raising funds to complete the memorial. If you'd like to help, visit the memorial website at www.tpdmemorial.com.

Helping victims navigate pain
7/14/2008 Tulsa World Newspaper

Tulsa police chaplain Danny Lynchard has learned to balance his ministerial duties with the goals of homicide investigations.

Chaplains comfort survivors in their darkest hours

When Danny Lynchard is called in the middle of the night, it means that someone has died a traumatic or unexpected death in Tulsa.

It's his job, or the job of one of the 16 volunteer pastors in the Tulsa Police and Fire Chaplaincy Corps, to tell the victim's family.

In 26 years of service as a chaplain for the corps, Lynchard has notified more than 1,000 families of the death of a loved one from homicide, suicide, fire, disaster or other unexpected death.

"The hardest part is when you ask them, 'Is there anything else we can do for you?' and they say, 'Can you bring them back?' and it's the helplessness of knowing that we can't. That is the hardest part," Lynchard said. "There is a look on their face — you know the question is coming. The look says, 'I know you can't do this, but you asked, so I am going to tell you.' "

Each chaplain in the corps is a pastor or associate pastor in the Tulsa area. Each is trained in police protocol, crime-scene preservation and the needs of families who are suffering traumatic grief.

Lynchard, who has been the director of the corps since 1987, ranks homicide as the most traumatic death experience for family members. He carries with him many images of his contacts with the families of homicide victims.

There was the elderly woman who was killed at her gravesite by her son, who then turned the gun on himself. As Lynchard approached the scene, he could see her scarf flapping in the wind as she sat dead in a wheelchair just feet from her husband's grave.

Lynchard remembers standing with the family of Cori Baker on the edge of the Arkansas River while police searched the water for the missing 13-year-old girl's body last year. He consoled them while they experienced a range of emotions — from "hoping that the boat finds a body in the river and rolls her up on the boat" to "hoping that they don't find a body in the river and roll her up on the boat," Lynchard said.

After the shock of learning that someone has died, families move on to doubt and disbelief, and another image Lynchard carries with him shows why his chaplains always go to the scene before notifying the family of a death.

Lynchard was called out late one night to a scene where a man was shot during a robbery at his garage apartment. He remembers seeing the gunshot wound to the man's head, but while in the apartment, Lynchard also noted that the victim had a black Gibson guitar.

"I left from there to go find his mom at 3 in the morning, and she thinks I made this story up or I've got the wrong guy, and she asks me why am I doing this to her? Were you there? How do you know it is him? And I describe his apartment, and I mention that black Gibson guitar.

"That scream she let out because she knew I found the right place and I was talking to her about her son — that is an unforgettable thing. That is why all of our chaplains go to the scene and make mental notes of pictures on the wall, a piece of furniture, anything that can help that person believe you were actually there and you know what you are talking about.''

Homicides pose unique challenges for chaplains because they have to balance their ministerial duties with preserving evidence in ongoing investigations. Often the killer is a family member or someone close to the family, he said.

"We are there to give the truth, and sometimes we can't tell the truth," Lynchard said. "So the best thing for us is to not know that much about the investigation so we can say we don't know."

As difficult as the job can be, all of the chaplains find satisfaction from the work, Lynchard said.

"Everyone will tell you that in a time when their (survivors') decision-making ability is all but taken from them, we know we can come in and help steer them down the right path in those early days, and we can provide information that they would not get anywhere else. We know it helps. We see the difference. That is the fulfillment we get," he said.

The needs of the victims are the same, but the intensity of an individual's grief varies.

"Everyone grieves the same," Lynchard said. "They go through the same stages, but their mourning is the expression of that grief, and that is often expressed differently. Some people become isolationists. Some people want to talk, but all of them want the victim remembered."

Nicole Marshall 918-581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com
By NICOLE MARSHALL Tulsa World Staff Writer

tpdblog.typepad.com

July 07, 2008
"Thank you for helping me..."

A note to the TPD from Police Chaplain Danny Lynchard

Nothing concerns and angers a police officer like the victimization of a child. When the victimizer is caught, it is the result of a lot of people pouring heart and effort into the attempt. There are those who dispatch, those who pursue, those who provide information, those who capture, those who interview, those who console a child, those who video, those who photograph, those who pray and many others. One little eight year-old girl can easily figure out who the good guys are.

After a recent AMBER ALERT, you arrested such a victimizer. I received this e-mail from (a Tulsa Police Sergeant). It comes from a little girl who spent the scariest time of her life praying for the cavalry to show up . . . . and it did.

She wrote, in little 8-year-old handwriting (complete with princess stickers) "Thank you ....for helping me."

She also wrote a thank you note to the "Tulsa Police guys and girls," (again adorned with princess stickers) that read,"Thank you tulsa police for saving me and my brothers and catching the bad guy..."

All other eloquence pales in the light of her "thank you," as does many other acts of kindness, compared to your commitment.

God Bless you all,

Danny Lynchard

Tulsa Police Chaplain

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/tulsa-records-500-homicides-in-a-decade/n20080713151709990008

quote from article:

'In 26 years as the Tulsa police and fire chaplain, Danny Lynchard has made more than 1,000 death notifications, including for homicides and other unexpected deaths such as suicides and traffic accidents. Yet, he said, it still shocked him to consider the human toll of more than 500 homicides during the last decade.

Lynchard ranks homicide as the most traumatic death experience for families to endure, with suicide and fatal fires second and third.

"It is so unexpected. It's not natural for that to happen," he said. "It destroys their world, and they no longer live in a safe world anymore.

"All the things they live their life based on are challenged - even their faith in God." '

Sun September 21, 1986
Prayer Ministry Targets Police Officers
http://newsok.com/article/keyword/2160392/?mp=0

by Glen Bayless
The Oklahoman Archives

Tulsa pastor Danny Lynchard is an unassuming former prison chaplain whose ministry to police officers in five years encompasses more than 100 U.S. cities.

He calls the mission "Peace Officers Prayer Partner," dedicated to enlisting at least two parishioners from congregations to pray daily for the safety and the stressful lives of officers on patrol.

Lynchard says church members in Tulsa, where the program originated, now number nearly 1,400 who are committed to nearly 700 officers in the city and neighboring areas.

There are chapters from California to the east coast. Rev. Stephen Hanna, a Presbyterian pastor from Modesto, Calif. related his participation in the program at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington earlier this year. Hanna has lined up prayer partners, and rides regularly in the right front seat of patrol cars with officers he regards as his own parishioners.

Lynchard's goal is to recruit 30,000 prayer partners nationwide for 15,000 police.

His own small congregation in Jenks supports his work. His pay is $16,000 a year which he says suffices with some help from donors.

In return for prayer partners, the police visit churches regularly and give their experiences on patrol as well as their testimony of faith.

Lynchard has learned a lot about police through living with officers, riding in their squad cars, and ministering to them and their families when called upon.

"I see too many of these public servants subjected to a view of society that few of us in our ivory towers and immaculate cathedrals ever knew existed," he said in an interview.

Many police are suspicious of citizens they believe are uncaring, and too often quick to label officers as brutes ever ready to intimidate and even injure the innocent.

Officers think in terms of "them and us", he said, and often crudely refer to the public as "mutts and maggots."

They bravely talk boast that they do not need outside help, that they "take care of their own."

Lynchard has found the opposite to be true. Officers and their families who are often isolated yearn for support.

They are continuously under stress and burnout contributing to anxiety that breeds alcoholism and even suicide.

Lynchard says the suicide rate among police is far above normal, and divorce and alcoholism are almost frequent results of stress.

"I find the divorce rate to be very high for many reasons, mostly job-related stress that most of them do not even realize exists," he said. "They seem to sit back and laugh while it slowly takes its toll on their lives and homes. Alcoholism is also no stranger, to many it becomes a close companion.

"Their job is such that they see only the bad guys. So with a warped view of society burnout becomes as common as the cold who really cares?"

He said the hard-to-convince have an attitude that the public will accuse police of persecution under any and all circumstances.

"So they say, 'let's just ride around and don't do anything, answering only those calls we have to,"' Lynchard said. "All they see are bad people."

Lynchard went to the Tulsa mayor in 1981 to get a list of officers who might be part of the prayer program. He had been a chaplain at the Mississippi state prison before going to Bible college in California and then becoming pastor of the Interfaith Christian Center in Jenks.

He said at the outset of the prayer partner program he was "more tolerated than appreciated."

The idea was so simple to recruit at least two prayer partners for every officer on the force, he said.

"If prayer really changes things, I thought, surely there are hundreds of private citizens willing to be a prayer partner on behalf of those who risk their lives to serve," Lynchard said. "The Bible teaches believers to respect authority and to pray for those in authority."

He went to squad meetings to meet the officers and began riding with them on patrol.

Officers began to accept prayer partners, he said.

"I stood amazed at the results," he said. "Officers began speaking in local churches. The overall public view of peace officers began to change as the news media talked and printed our story. Our office began receiving calls from all over 100 cities altogether.

"Police departments began reporting a boost in moral and rapport between the agency and the community."

Lynchard is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor and an assistant chaplain in Tulsa. He said there are 22 other assistant chaplains serving the Tulsa police force, all volunteers.

He has raised money for those in need, visited families of officers who have been injured in the line of duty and those who have despaired and taken their own lives.

One of those had been honored as police officer of the year, but who failed to overcome a sense of guilt over a trivial misunderstanding with another officer.

The suicide rate is six times as many as are killed in the line of duty and one of three officers are divorced after two years on the job, he said.

There are chapters in Ardmore and Sapulpa in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City police do not participate in the program although the department knows about it and some churches in Oklahoma City have inquired about starting a prayer ministry.

Jack Poe, chaplain of the Oklahoma City police department and the 45th Infantry Brigade of the Oklahoma National Guard, said police chiefs over the years have had a policy prohibiting the release of names of officers outside the department.

He said it's a matter of privacy and separation of church and state.

The department encourages officers to get involved in their own churches. Poe said he makes hospital calls on officers and their families and rides with police on duty, perhaps 300 hours a year. He is supported by the Capital Baptist Association and Baptist home missions board and regards the police beat as his parish."Some police would appreciate prayer partners, but others would be very upset if their names were released," he said. "Our percentage of believers is higher than in the general public." BIOG: NAME:

Archive ID: 282060