Bridgette Perry, grandmother of Sierra Guyton, addresses a crowd of more than 100 people on the playground at Clarke Street School. Guyton was gravely wounded when she was caught in the cross-fire of a shootout there Wednesday evening. Credit: Rick Wood

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As Sierra Guyton lay critically wounded in a hospital and Milwaukee police fanned out around the neighborhood where the 10-year-old was shot, Brother Malcolm Hunt pulled family members still at the scene into a circle and led them in prayer.

"I asked God to speak life into this child," said Hunt, a former Milwaukee police officer and elder at a nearby Least of These International Ministries, who rushed to the scene as soon as he heard the news.

"I told them this is not a time to think about doing evil. After a while, that only pushes God to the side and lets Satan in," Hunt said. "And we need God right now, when this child is fighting for her life."

Hunt is a member of Pastors United, a growing corps of some 300 clergy, business leaders and other like-minded supporters who have mobilized over the last year in hopes of addressing some of the daunting problems that burden Milwaukee's largely African-American central city.

The list is overwhelming: Poorly performing schools; high rates of illness, from diabetes to HIV; too few two-parent families; scarce opportunities for work; infant mortality rates that rival the Third World; and young men imprisoned in numbers far beyond the national average. But it is the endless gun violence — often random and deadly — that inspired the outrage of pastors this week.

"We need to pray for the community to come together and take ownership of this part of the city," the Rev. Gregory Lewis told members at their monthly prayer service Thursday at Jerusalem Memorial Baptist Church, 2505 W. Cornell St.

"We shouldn't have to expect for the police to control our families," Lewis shouted, drawing "Amens" and applause from the crowd of some 30 worshippers.

"The people who are doing these crimes are in your houses," he said. "And as long as we condone and enable them to continue this behavior, and not do something about it, we are just as guilty and as impotent as they are."

Pastors United grew out of a November 2012 get-out-the-vote rally by faith-based organizations on the steps of Milwaukee's Zeidler Municipal Building. It sparked a conversation among clergy from across traditions about the needs of the poor and underrepresented in Milwaukee, said Lewis, an assistant pastor at St. Gabriel's Church of God in Christ, 5363 N. 37th St. That morphed into a formal organization that has been building steam ever since, signing up new members, forging relationships with organizations already on the ground, and developing a vision and game plan.

Its long-range goals are ambitious: a social service agency, a business incubator to create jobs, rehabbing foreclosed homes. For now, though, the mission is outreach: leaving their churches to walk the neighborhoods and understand residents' needs, responding to families in crisis and connecting with youths before they veer off into trouble.

Partners include the Milwaukee Police Department and Milwaukee Public Schools.

"What we're trying to do with the pastors — and not just those in Pastors United — is to expand their role so they're really involved in providing resources in the community," said Milwaukee Police Capt. Peter Pierce, who oversees the department's community outreach and education efforts.

Much of that work with Pastors United has been centered in District 3, where Malcolm Hunt once patrolled as a police officer, and members have developed a relationship with Capt. Jason Smith.

Among the initiatives there, pastors are making weekly visits to several schools, including North Division High School, to serve as mentors or offer prayer for students who request it. A new program has pulled together clergy, parents, the school and police to wrap themselves around 14 struggling students.

District officers call on clergy to help quell emotions at crime scenes, and to work with victims and their families afterward to tamp the urge for revenge that only perpetuates the cycle of violence.

Hunt and a small group from Pastors United took that message back into Sierra Guyton's neighborhood as part of a prayer vigil Friday night. And next week, they plan to go door-to-door to better understand what they can do to improve life in the neighborhood.

"This is just the beginning," Hunt said. "There's a lot of work to be done. But first the churches have to come out from behind their walls and go out to the streets."

The city is home turf for many of Pastors United's members, who grew up in Milwaukee and knew it as a different place. There was poverty, certainly, and discrimination, Lewis said. But neighborhood parks and schoolyards were safe. Kids went on to college or a job in one of the many factories in their surrounding neighborhoods.

Today, most of those factories are shuttered or empty shells. Too many young men leave school for the streets and then graduate to prison. And virtually every church has a food pantry, an indication that even basic needs go unmet. Clergy have gone into homes, Hunt said, where there is no food, no furniture, no running water.

"There is just so much," said Lewis, a Milwaukee native who fought back tears talking about the immense needs of the city.

"When the little children grow up and all they have to look forward to is a life of despair, it is enough to bring you to your knees."