Pastor Chris Harris

Pastor Chris Harris leads Bright Star Church in Chicago’s Bronzeville Community and has ministered in over 24 countries singing Gospel and Jazz.

He is the founder of Bright Star Community Outreach, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to youth & family anti-violence programs. He has developed the TURN Center (The Urban Resilience Network) based on the Israeli model of NATAL in Tel Aviv. TURN endeavors to focus on five core competencies: counseling, parenting, mentorship, work-force development and advocacy. Its unique model will utilize faith and community leaders as trauma counselors and use community surveys as the basis for services that directly correspond to the unique needs of constituents. Its end-to-end approach offers a replicable, evidenced-based template for risk assessment and program evaluation. Although the TURN Center will sit in Bronzeville; it will serve Chicago as a whole, and our ultimate goal is to replicate this model across the United States in other traumatized communities.

BCSO’s partners in this effort are: Northwestern Medicine, University of Chicago Medicine, United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish United Fund, Sinai Community Institute, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and now CIGNA to name a few. This community impact project has received more than $9 Million dollars of support thus far. BSCO now employs 500+ (full and part time) residents in Chicago and has served thousands of residents in the Bronzeville Community. One of the most exciting things for Pastor Harris and BSCO is their Greater Bronzeville Community Action Plan where more than 50 Bronzeville organizations are collaboratively partnering to make a community level impact on violence and trauma. This collaborative vision plan birthed from and led by Pastor Harris recently received a $1 Million Grant from the MacArthur Foundation over a four year period.

Pastor Harris has served as National Council Member of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and is the Chairman of the Bronzeville Community Action Council. He is also a member of the University of Chicago Medicine (UCM) Community Advisory Council and has served as President of the 4th Ward & Cook County Clergy Coalitions. He’s the proud husband of Jojo Harris and father of four beautiful children – Chrystal (26), Chris Jr. (21), Christian (19) and Christiana (16).