Pastors, groups work to unite community

Local community leaders met Thursday to pray together and discuss the measures to be taken to unite the community and break the racial divide following the country's recent tragedies.

Volunteers at the Webb Community Center, members of the Hot Springs NAACP Unit No. 6013, local pastors and law enforcement officers with the Hot Springs Police Department began the meeting with a prayer circle in which everyone in attendance joined hands and took turns praying for each other and for the city as a whole.

The group is organizing a series of events in the coming weeks to unite the community, beginning with a county-wide prayer summit at 5 p.m. today at Visitor's Chapel AME Church.

Greg Bearss, lead pastor of LakePointe Church, said the meeting was a "starting point" and his hope is for local pastors to begin leading the city, to "break through the barriers of race and color" once and for all, to bridge the gap between the community and law enforcement, and for the community to unite and say, "we're together, we're standing together, and we're not going to let what is happening around our country and around our nation happen here in our city.

"We need to stand in unity and apologize to our city. I need to apologize to our brothers and sisters that we haven't done this sooner. We haven't united the black community, the white community, the Hispanic -- the red, yellow, black and white. We're not going to let this division happen, and we're going to stand behind our law enforcement and we're going to stand together in Jesus' name," Bearss added.

Steve Lake, pastor of Historic Eureka Missionary Baptist Church, said that unity between all communities will only happen if everyone does their part. "Each person has to try to reach out and reach our brothers and sisters all across the board and make the efforts," he said.

"I believe that all things work together for the good, so however we're going to develop some type of working relationship, it's got to start somewhere. I just want to be apart of trying to see what that looks like and just do my part for us to come together," Lake said.

Thursday's meeting united people from all walks of life, different skin colors and different denominations, but each of them agreed on a common goal: to come together.

"We've got this church over here, that church over there, these people over here, that group of people over there -- we just need to come together in unity. The Bible says, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand.' It doesn't mean just a house, it means a community, or a state, or whatever. Just come together, unity, that's it, that's what we need to do different," said NAACP member Mary Moore.

In the wake of the recent tragedies in Dallas, Louisiana and Minnesota, Jon Beyer, pastor of First Lutheran Church, said that people should be more sensitive to each other's "hurts and issues," whether it is understanding what police officers go through on a daily basis, and what they have to deal with under stress, or understanding the individuals who feel like they're under attack or aren't being respected and are constantly being falsely accused.

"We need to understand people and where they're at and begin to build each other up and encourage each other and deal with issues in a healthy way. It's an understanding, it's a marriage of a family. We're brothers and sisters. Hot Springs is a special city. Great churches, great law enforcement, great people, great things," Beyer added.

"I think this community needs to be honest with itself and realize and confess that there's a need for this kind of activity. I actually believe that this community needs to confess about our shortcomings and our weaknesses rather than to rely on or dwell on the past. We need to work in the present, but we can't work in the present without admitting that we have a past," said Elmer Beard, secretary and lifelong member of the NAACP.

Local on 07/15/2016

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