The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
City’s fabric woven with faith
New head of clergy group deeply involved
“Our part is to give voice to those that seem to have no voice.” Pastor Roger Wilkins
NEW HAVEN — For Pastor Roger Wilkins, the area’s spiritual leaders need to be involved in every aspect of life in order to help make the New Haven area, and especially the city, the most livable place it can be.
So Wilkins, newly elected president of the Greater New Haven Clergy Association, is engaged with residents well beyond his congregation at Maranatha Life Changing Ministries.
“The clergy endeavors to use those partnerships that we have with the mayor, with the chief of police, with the fire chief, with Yale University, with other schools around the city, UNH, Quinnipiac and business communities, to help make a better New Haven,” Wilkins said.
Every institution must work together, and that includes the faith community, he said, so Wilkins hopes to reach out to more clergy in Greater New Haven, to broaden the association’s membership. While the group once was more diverse, it now represents primarily African-American churches in the region.
“It’s ecumenical in its endeavor, and at one time that’s how it was,” Wilkins said. “In recent years, it’s been African-American reflective, but it’s never been African-American exclusive. I’m reaching out
personally, going to every church that I can and personally inviting every pastor to be a part of this.”
He’s not limiting his invitations to Christian churches either. Wilkins would like rabbis and imams to join his efforts.
“Because we live in the city we’re touched by the ills and the issues that come with living in the city,” he said. But the association’s goal, he said, is “to promote unity, fellowship, spiritual growth and (for) the members to propagate Christian influence to address social, political, economic issues on behalf of the communities we represent.”
The association has about 50 members, he said, with clergy from surrounding cities and towns and as far as Ansonia. Serving the community
However, New Haven is central to the association’s efforts. Just recently, he and other members have sat in with the Board of Education as it works to choose a new superintendent of schools.
“We said to the board that we support their efforts,” Wilkins said. “We need someone who’s experienced both in education and the economy of running an educational system like New Haven. We need someone with not just the knowledge, not just the education, but with the tenacity to put together a program that will … provide the best educational system for a city like New Haven.”
Wilkins has met with Police Chief Anthony Campbell on a monthly basis about issues such as diversity training and the department’s plan to employ body cameras on its officers. According to Pastor James Newman of New Freedom Missionary Baptist Church, past president of the association, the group signed off on a grant to get the cameras.
The association has addressed minority hiring in the police and fire departments, its members have participated as “ambassadors,” accompanying police in talking to youths at risk, visited families of the victims of gun violence, and been involved in Project Longevity, the department’s campaign to redirect gang members away from violence.
Mayor Toni Harp also has met with the association to talk about ways the group can support the city. Among those initiatives have been partnering with King-Robinson Interdistrict Magnet and Lincoln-Bassett schools.
“We gave money to the schools for the kids to do extracurricular activities,” Wilkins said.
Jobs and housing are also at the top of the association’s priorities, Wilkins said.
“We’re just trying to be a voice that all of these things are important and we’re asking, how do we bring all these things together at the same time in such a way that the whole city benefits from it? One is no more important than the other.
“Our part is to give voice to those that seem to have no voice,” Wilkins said. “We have to consider everyone in the process and because we are the heart of the city we want to be at the table making decisions about what’s going on for the betterment of all citizens of New Haven.”
Wilkins, 61, was born in Atlanta and moved to Butler Street in New Haven in 1963. He “grew up” in the Trinity Temple Church of God in Christ on Dixwell Avenue. “That’s where I got saved,” he said. “I’ve been in church since I was 9 years old and did many, many different jobs in the church. I was janitor, choir director, administrator.”
He met his late wife, Wanda, at the Trinity Temple and reared his two daughters, Erica and Ashley, there. “Out of that experience I heard the call of God to ministry,” he said.
Maranatha, which means “the Lord is coming,” is a member of the Church of God in Christ, a worldwide denomination with more than 6 million members in the United States. Wilkins’ church at 5 Hazel St. in Newhallville, a small brick structure, is being renovated after suffering water damage, but the members are involved in a variety of ministries, with the sick, the homeless and those in hospitals. Work to do
Another initiative, Project Green, is a “substanceabuse program for young men that were incarcerated and they go through an inpatient program for a certain period of time, and when they graduate from there they’re allowed to re-enter back into society,” Wilkins said.
“We want to reflect Christ in the work that we do and the work that Jesus did was to bring people back to God by serving them and their needs,” Wilkins said. “Our work is to help people in every way that we can.”
Famous “Fay” Clark, a member of Maranatha who has known Wilkins for more than 40 years, said of Wilkins, “He’s very respected by his colleagues. He’s not a novice. … He knew how to bring people together. When there’s concerns or he sees things that need to be addressed, he’s very open and willing to be part of the solution.”
Pastor Kelcy Steele of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church, the association’s new vice president, said that under Wilkins “we’re really rebuilding our platform and coming together to start some initiatives in order to better the community.”
He talked of a “freedom school” that would “train young people on soft skills — resume writing and also preparing our students to be on the cutting edge of technology so they’ll be better prepared for the jobs that are coming.”
He said that in the meeting with Harp “she basically gave us the state of the city so we can mold our program around that.”
Wilkins, he said, “looks at things from a compassionate lens, so he really has the heart of the community. He’s really a servant. I’m just excited to be working with him and the New Haven Clergy Association as we bring about change in the city.”
Wilkins, who was elected in September to a two-year term, will be inaugurated during a service on Monday at Bethel AME Church, 255 Goffe St. A 6 p.m. press conference will precede the 7 p.m. service.