La Crosse pastor helps state patrol start police chaplain program

Clements will serve as one of first 19 volunteer chaplains

Mark Clements is at the center of another police chaplain program in Wisconsin.

Clements, pastor at Living Word Christian Church in La Crosse and founder of the Wisconsin Police and La Crosse Area Chaplains programs, has helped the state patrol launch its own program.  

“I think it’s advantageous and beneficial for every agency, every department, every organization in law enforcement to have chaplains that are available to support their personnel,” Clements said.

The state patrol reached out to Clements to start a program last year after a trooper was killed in the line of duty.  

Clements says it’s almost a must that every police agency have a chaplains program to support their personnel.

“Law enforcement is not getting any easier,” Clements said. “There’s a tremendous negative connotation when you report to people your employment.”

With that, Clements believes chaplains are becoming a necessity in the ever more stressful environment of policing.

“They’re looking at, now, the added pressures and challenges and dangers that their personnel go through, that also translates back to their 

family members,” Clements said. “Numbers of law enforcement professionals are reporting that their family members, they don’t want them to do it anymore.”

Clements not only started the program for the State Patrol but will also serve as one of the first 19 volunteer chaplains in the program.