Sutherland Springs
6 months after massacre, Sutherland Springs pastor says nation should put God first
By Adelle M. Banks — May 4, 2018
WASHINGTON (RNS) — 'From the blood that was spilled, from the ashes, glory is rising,' said Pastor Frank Pomeroy.
2 arrested after claiming Texas church shooting was fiction
By Associated Press — March 6, 2018
(AP) — Pastor Frank Pomeroy, whose 14-year-old daughter died in the Nov. 5 shooting, says they claimed his daughter never existed and demanded to see her birth certificate.
Prayer and a packing pastor: A church’s response to mass shooting
By Yonat Shimron — February 23, 2018
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (RNS) — In this dusty crossroads town of 600 people with one blinking red light, church members have taken a starkly different approach from that of the Florida high school students agitating for change.
To keep churches safe, government gets involved
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald — January 29, 2018
(RNS) — 'My job as the shepherd of the church is to protect the flock. And I will do so with whatever means I need,' said Richard Reid, pastor of North Baptist Church in Brockton, Mass.
Virginia Senate passes bill to allow guns in churches
By Alan Suderman — January 24, 2018
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The measure comes in response to a deadly church shooting in Texas.
Allowing guns in church flies in the face of tradition and Scripture
By Tom Verde — December 19, 2017
(RNS) — Pistol-packing parishioners may seem like a way to guard against the church shootings that have become so commonplace recently. But there is a long history in Christianity of opposing such strategies.
God and guns: Texas pastors undergo security training a month after Sutherland Springs
By Bobby Ross Jr. — December 5, 2017
PLANO, Texas (RNS) — The Rev. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church and a former president of the national Southern Baptist Convention, said God put the idea for the free seminar on his heart.
Thousands pack Texas church shooting family funeral service
By Emily Schmall — November 15, 2017
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Church member John Holcombe, among the massacre's few survivors, invited the public to attend the funeral of his pregnant wife, three of her children, his parents, a brother and the brother's 18-month-old daughter.
Could it happen here? How churches are preparing for a mass shooting
By Emily McFarlan Miller — November 14, 2017
SCOTTS, Mich. (RNS) – The weekend after the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history, one small church in Michigan had security trainers teach congregants how to respond to an armed intruder.
Texas town holds 1st Sunday service since church attack
By Jerome Socolovsky — November 12, 2017
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Members of the First Baptist Church will hold a church service for the first time since a gunman opened fire inside the small church a week earlier in the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
Last Sunday, domestic violence came to church
By Nancy Nason-Clark — November 10, 2017
(RNS) — There is a holy hush that permeates church life when it comes to thinking about domestic violence within and beyond congregational life, writes Nancy Nason-Clark.
The glue that kept Sutherland Springs together before and after the shootings
By Yonat Shimron — November 10, 2017
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (RNS) — Within 24 hours of the mass shooting, another church in town sprang into action, as the coordinating center for the emergency response.
Who decides when we as a country pray and when we act?
By Chloe Breyer — November 9, 2017
(RNS) — 'The dichotomy between prayers and action portrayed in the Twitter feeds of our leaders is a false one and serves neither the dead, the bereaved, nor our nation as a whole,' writes Chloe Breyer. (COMMENTARY)
Pence tells grieving town ‘Faith is stronger than evil’
By Kimberly Winston — November 9, 2017
FLORESVILLE, Texas (RNS) — The memorial service, held in a neighboring town of Sutherland Springs, followed Christian tradition and was replete with Bible readings and prayers to Jesus.
Mother Emanuel AME pastor shows solidarity with Sutherland Springs
By Adelle M. Banks — November 8, 2017
(RNS) — The Rev. Eric S.C. Manning hopes to visit Texas church members because 'when trauma happens sometimes those who have gone through it are able to provide a little bit more of an encouragement.'
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