Church plans to open veterans center
DEL CITY — A local congregation plans to open a center designed to improve the lives of military members and their communities.
The Rev. James L. “Sam” Watkins, founder and senior pastor of Branches Church OKC, said the Centurion Center will open on Nov. 11, Veterans Day, at 4719 SE 29.
Watkins said the Centurion Center will offer specialized support for past and present members of the Armed Forces, in addition to others in the community.
He said Branches Church currently is seeking volunteers to help operate the new center. The volunteer group, called Centurion Guard, is made up of a group of
former and current military service members that work together to help military members regardless of combat experience or years in service. Watkins said the only requirements to join the
group are proof of honorable discharge and “a commitment to the standard of living life above reproach.”
Watkins will be executive director of the new center. He said the organization's
umbrella organization is a worldwide group called the Centurion Guard Foundation.
The ordained minister said he has more than one reason
to celebrate the center's future opening.
The married South Carolina native served in the U.S. Army from 1997 to 2005, earning several honors and accolades before he was medically retired due to cancer.
He had beaten cancer not once but twice when he decided to partner with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, also known as Oklahoma Baptists, to start Victory Chapel Military Ministries. In 2015, that ministry opened Branches Church OKC as a church for active members of the military, veterans and their families, as well as others in the community.
Watkins said cancer returned twice more, but he currently is a four-time cancer survivor.
He said he's ready to see his vision for a veterans center come to fruition. It was one of the programs he had hoped to start in previous years, but his health prevented him from leading the effort.
These days, the preacher is moving forward with the project.
He has mobilized numerous people to help launch the Centurion Center, and he's hoping more will come forward to volunteer their time and donate funds to help support the center's mission.
Watkins envisions the center as a “one-stop shop” for support services, a type of resource center for military
communities that will offer post-traumatic stress classes, support groups and other services.
He said the center will be well placed because of its proximity to Tinker Air Force Base.
And the minister said the entire community will benefit from having the center in their midst, not just military members. “The cool thing about it is if people in the community never
served, we'll still help them with whatever we possibly can. So when we say `military community,' we're talking about the community adjacent to the military installation, and that encompasses all the people that live there,” Watkins said. “While it's military specific, it's not military required.”
He said Branches Church moved into the space at 4719 SE 29 in April and that is where the veterans center will be housed. Watkins said his goal is to eventually see the church and the center housed at separate locations.
The center already is hosting some classes and helping people, but the grand opening will be on Veterans Day.
“We help people who are active duty, and we also help prepare them to move away from active duty and back into civilian life,” Watkins said.
“We really try to tailor it to where they're at.”