Often times, it’s easy to think of the word of God residing in the church. But sometimes, when people need guidance the most, a church is nowhere in sight.

The Moody Police Department is looking to make spiritual guidance and support more prevalent in the community through a re-energizing of the Moody Police Department’s chaplain program, which takes pastoral care out of the church and into the street.

During the past few months, Police Chief Bobby Breed has been working to restructure the chaplain program by not only adding more names to the roster, but also developing a strategy to make pastoral care more available throughout the community.

“There’s always been a chaplain program here, we’re just breathing new life into it,” Breed explained. “It’s difficult for one chaplain alone to meet the needs of the community.”

A police chaplain is an on-call volunteer who handles a wide variety of situations, from city employees needing pastoral care, to showing support for a family who has lost a loved one in an accident or undergone some other type of tragedy.

Currently, the city of Moody has two chaplains serving them — the Rev. Byron Davis joined the team in June, while the Rev. Joe Joyner was added to the roster in September.

While both have spent many years in the ministry — Davis has been a pastor for 62 years, while Joyner has spent 42 years as a pastor — both are new to the chaplain program as a whole.

“The term ‘chaplain’ is new territory for me, but a pastor has to do the kind of things all his life that we’re expecting here,” Davis said. “I’ve been called by the Chief at 7 a.m. to go give him a hand, calming a family or praying with them and to stay in touch with them later if they need it. … We just want to let people in the community know that someone cares about them.”

Joyner agreed.

“My whole life has been trying to help people in need, this is just an extension of that same concept. There are times when an officer is in a really difficult position, and he may be a fine officer and very well trained, but not trained to deal with a particular situation. A pastor could be of great assistance.”

Breed said he’s currently looking for more people to serve as chaplains, and envisions having a rotating roster where pastors would serve one week on call at a time, rather than the more constant on-call period of the past. He also hopes to allow the chaplains to walk a mile in the shoes of the officers they’re working with.

“I envision a ride-along program, where the chaplains can ride with a supervisor and be on the beat for a few hours,” Breed said, noting that the Birmingham Police Department had a similar program when he was on the force. “When [Birmingham] first started the program, I remember [chaplains] coming out and riding with us, going on calls, going to houses where people needed counseling, where there was sickness, going on death calls, going to the hospital for visits, funerals, there’s just a large number of things they can do.”

While the program is slowly growing, Breed said the community feedback has been extremely positive.

“One citizen called and said she was glad to see us take the initiative to beef up the program, because she felt there had to be needs that needed to be addressed if not daily, on a weekly basis,” he said. “I get hit all the time on Facebook and on my email address from here about various things, but there have been no negative comments, saying ‘You’re wasting your time, we don’t need that.’ All cities need that. I’m good at what I do — this [law enforcement] is my calling. But I’m not good at what pastors do.”

Whether it’s ministering in a city office or on the side of a road, the chaplain program aims to help the hurting throughout the community.

 “There are a lot of people out there that have no interest in having a church or a pastor, but sometimes, when life crumbles right before them, they try to figure out where they can get some help they haven’t had before, so the doors are really open for ministry,” Davis said.