b'6 CampusTRADITIONED INNOVATION AWARD WINNERSanctified Art GroupRecognizedWhen Hannah Garrity, a candidate for the Master of Divinity/Master of Arts in Public Theology degree at Union Presbyterian Seminary, was a little girl, her mother told her she was an artist. I believed her, and Ive been working at it ever since. Today, she works with a Black Mountain, North Carolina-based nonprofit called A Sanctified Art, which was a 2023 winner of the Traditioned Innovation Award, given by Duke University Divinity School. It recognizes organizations that honor the work that holds together past and futureliving out the convictions of anancientfaithincurrent challenging circumstances.A Sanctified Art describes itselfasateamofartists inministrywhocreate multimediaresourcesfor worshiping communities of all shapes and sizes. Garrityalsoservesas director of Christian Faith, Life and Art at Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond.Surrogacy by Hannah Garrity (left) and Comfort O Comfort by Lauren Wright Pittman (right)MORE ONLINETo learn more about A Sanctified Art, visit them online at https://sanctifiedart.orgTHE THREE-LEGGED APPROACH OF SCLEAPMinistering to Law Enforcement One Sunday in 1993, Eric Skidmore, who was a full-time associate pastor onSusan Smith strapped her two sons, ages three years and 14 months, into the staff of Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina,the family car and rolled it into John D. Long Lake, where they drowned.was shaking hands at the door when a visitor posed an intriguing question.A year or two after the Susan Smith case, a family of five went to that He was the Chief of the State Police and was starting a volunteer chaplaincysame landing, to a memorial to those children there, says Skidmore. They program. Would Eric like to volunteer?were parked on the ramp, the brakes in their Suburban failed, and the car At that point, I had an M.Div from Union and was working on a D.Min.rolled into that lake. Mom and Dad tried to save their children. The whole from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, recalls Skidmore. Myfamily drowned. The dive team that retrieved all those bodies is the same intention was to follow a very traditional path, a parish ministry. I wentone that found Susan Smiths children. The same team.out to the headquarters, and I agreed to do it. I didnt really know whatIn 2015, police officers in Charleston, South Carolina, responded to the public safety chaplaincy meant. scene of a deadly shooting that took the lives of nine churchgoers at He would soon find out. And he would learn about the difficult situationsEmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest Black church in law enforcement officers encounter on a daily basisand the need to helpthe southern United States. The victims were killed during a Wednesday them deal with the effects of those encounters that can haunt them fornight Bible study by a white supremacist. daysor even years. Four years into his volunteer work with the state police, Skidmore and For 27 years, Skidmore has been program manager for the South Carolinaother volunteer law enforcement chaplains decided to apply to the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Program (SCLEAP), a program that has becomegovernment for funding to support their work. They won a $300,000 a model for several other states. SCLEAPs mission is to deal with thegrant. That same year, Skidmore decided to resign as associate pastor of tremendous emotional impact on the officers who deal with [tragic] events,Eastminster Presbyterian. The presbytery designated what I was doing as a he explains. validated ministry, which allowed me to remain a member of the presbytery Skidmore describes the work of SCLEAP as a three-legged stool. Oneand become a parish associate at Forest Lake Presbyterian Church.leg is mental health professionals, one leg is chaplaincy, and one leg is peerSkidmore has been a trainer for 10 courses, taught by the International support. We all three work in concert to provide services to an amazinglyCritical Incident Stress Foundation, for those who provide peer support, underserved population. Theyll listen to the chaplain, and theyll listen toand he has developed a deep respect for how law enforcement officers the mental health professional, but they will really listen to someone whohelp one another. Ive learned a lot about the peer support world and has been through the same kind experiencea peer. about training people to become supporters, their own sort of helpers in Even casual readers of South Carolinaand nationalheadlines willthis ministry, he explains. They are very, very effective. Theyre almost have a sense of what law enforcement officers there have encounteredlike their own kind of diaconate.over the years. In 1994, a Union County, South Carolina, woman named Sharon & Brook 2024 WINTER ISSUE / SPRUNT'