In the end, he found a perfect compromise.
Elmore today works as pastor of a young and growing Fields of Grace Worship Center in the western Miami County village of Covington. He also volunteers, a few miles away as the Piqua Police Department chaplain.
A native of Sidney, he graduated from Sidney High School and the Upper Valley JVS in 1984 in its first law enforcement class.
“I was big time into law enforcement, but I also was brought up in the church so I had a real strong faith background,” he said.
Even then he was struggling between the two fields, but took a factory job for 10 years.
Finally, the day of reckoning arrived. He headed into ministry as associate pastor at the New Hope Church of God in Piqua.
In 1998, his first church beckoned and Elmore was off to a Church of God in Findlay. Six months after his arrival, another local minister called and asked if Elmore might be interested in serving as the Findlay Police Department’s chaplain.
“I told him, you don’t know what you are asking,” he said. He prayed, talked with others and soon was onboard.
When he returned to the church in Piqua in 2004, Elmore approached Chief Phil Potter about a Piqua police chaplain program. He agreed and the program was initiated and continued through Chief Wayne Willcox and now Chief Bruce Jamison.
His role is a combination of working with and assisting officers and dealing with the public. Situations with the public might include a domestic situation, death notifications or cases involving children. He does some ceremonies such as the police appreciation banquet, weddings of officers and baptisms of children.
He also talks with officers about professional and personal issues, including family concerns, which are not uncommon in police work.
“I spend the majority of my time in cruisers with officers. The cruiser is their office, and that’s where they feel comfortable to talk,” he said.
Elmore teaches courses on death notification, and attends as much training as he can on the highly emotional but necessary part of police and ministry work.
He left his church job for about three years in 2007 before joining with a few others to start the new church, which has a new home in a donated building, and now attracts up to 400 people to services.
“It has happened so fast and so quick, it has been an amazing thing the past couple of years,” Elmore said.
He and his wife, Penny, a teacher in Russia schools have three children, Austin, Eli and Ethan.
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