As chaplain for the county police and fire departments, the Rev. Larry Wynn bears the burden of telling families when a loved one has died.
By George Chidi
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — As the longtime senior pastor of one of the largest churches in Gwinnett County, Larry Wynn is used to high-profile roles.
Wynn has been senior pastor of Dacula’s 12,000-member Hebron Baptist for nearly 28 years. He also is a former president of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
But those aren’t the only high-profile roles Wynn has held through the decades. The 53-year-old pastor also has maintained another, grimmer duty.
Wynn has been called on to walk up to countless hundreds of houses to inform worried spouses, parents, or loved ones about a death in the family. He’s heard the screaming, witnessed the fresh tears and pain.
Wynn is the longest-serving chaplain for Gwinnett County’s police and fire departments. He also serves as chaplain for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Department of Homeland Security. Part of the job requires him to tell Gwinnett’s families when someone close has died by violence or accident.
He was the county’s only chaplain when he started in 1981, he said. Gwinnett now has eight chaplains, all pastors at local churches.
Chaplains serve the religious needs of police and firefighters, as well as help with death notifications. They aren’t paid and have no official authority, although a state police board offers certification.
Things aren’t like they were when Wynn started in the ‘80s. A radio and a very modern Blackberry mobile e-mail device supplement the old phone by the bedside.
But a quarter-century later, the job hasn’t become much easier. “There isn’t anything that would make it easier,” Wynn said.
Instead, it’s getting a little harder, he said.
When he started, the county had roughly one-fifth of its population and his church congregation could be numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands. Now the county has about three-quarters of a million people and his church is one of the biggest in the state. Breaking away from church on Sunday becomes more difficult to justify, he said.
And it’s not as easy to find relatives to inform them of a tragedy, Wynn added.
“Even 15 years ago, most everybody lived here all their lives,” he said. If someone wasn’t home, a neighbor would know where they were. But fewer people know their neighbors now, he said. “Sometimes, nobody knows where they are.”
This has been especially true in Gwinnett’s growing immigrant population, he said. Language barriers can make a difficult process more so. The county has a Spanish-speaking chaplain now — Glen Rowden, an associate missions pastor from Hebron Baptist.
New immigrants also have brought a cornucopia of religious faiths with them. Wynn comes to help people handle the immediate needs of their grief, not to proselytize as a Baptist minister, he said. When he asks a grieving family member who he might seek to help them spiritually, he has found himself calling around for Catholic or Hindu priests, Buddhist monks, Jewish rabbis or Muslim imams.
Each of the county’s eight chaplains is a Christian from a Protestant denomination. The county has been trying to recruit more volunteer chaplains from other faiths but has been unsuccessful so far, Wynn said.
It’s important for the county’s chaplains to reflect its residents, Gwinnett County fire department spokesman Thomas Rutledge said.
“We have a diverse county and a diverse government,” Rutledge said.
Faith aside, the volunteer chaplains have an important duty.
Each chaplain stays on call to respond when an accident or a crime leaves someone dead or dying.
As Wynn approaches someone’s house, he said he thinks about how the news will be received, and how it will be remembered. He tries to get inside, if he can. He has found that it’s better to deliver the news in the living room than from the doorstep.
“Almost without fail, I’m thinking this will change their lives forever,” he said.
How does he do it?
“You want to do it with compassion ... but you almost have to go on autopilot,” Wynn said. He tries to get the information out quickly and clearly. He also tries to stay until other family members or friends can come, he said.
Reactions vary, he said.
The job exists to help police officers as much as the public, he said.
Once upon a time, Wynn had considered taking up law enforcement as a profession instead of the ministry, he said. By staying with a family, the chaplain frees the officer to go back to duty, he said.
“They don’t have to feel guilty, having left someone there.”