Collars on the Corner offers prayers on the streets of Milwaukee
Ecumenical clergy reach their neighbors where they are—outside of church buildings.
As Luria Sampson drove to his daughter’s house in Milwaukee, his thoughts focused on her safety in a city suffering through a surge in shooting deaths in recent years. Then he saw an unexpected sight: a group of clergy dressed in black and wearing their collars standing on the sidewalk.
It is called Collars on the Corner, a public ministry that an Episcopal deacon and Roman Catholic deacon launched after a Milwaukee police shooting last August. The killing of a black man during a chase by an on-duty city officer, also black, sparked days of protests and thrust the city’s stark segregation into the national spotlight.
Kevin Stewart, the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee’s missioner for community engagement, has spent much of the past year developing the ecumenical Collars on the Corner ministry with deacon Jim Banach of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee. They invite clergy of all denominations to join them in collecting and responding to prayer requests, and they encourage churches to host the ministry on their own nearby corners.
