Shooting in the Fellowship Hall

That Saturday night, my phone lit up. Then again. And again and again. Calls and texts from my church leadership team came in faster than I could answer them. I was spending time with my family. Why can't this wait till Sunday morning? I thought.

They kept coming. Was the church on fire? Was I fired? Why were all our leaders calling me at once?

I don't even remember who I called back first, but I'll never forget the words. They were the beginning of a minister's worst nightmare:

"There's been a shooting at the church."

After the bullets

Within minutes I was on the freeway. I sped, praying over and over: "Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy!" I didn't stop praying out loud until I pulled up in front of the church. I was speechless.

A gunman had shot into our fellowship hall where four hundred people had gathered.

The parking lot was blocked with emergency vehicles of every kind. Dozens of lights flashed, reflecting off the building's outer walls. Every news station in town had arrived before me. The media had come to see if this was a hate crime, a mass shooting, or gang violence. The emergency crews, like me, did not know what they would find. All we knew was that a gunman had shot into our fellowship hall where four hundred people had gathered for a community event.

I did not know how many people were hit, or whether they were dead or alive.

From witnesses and police, I began piecing the story together. A young man with a pistol walked into the fellowship hall, hugged a man—apparently a man that he had targeted, and shot him point blank in the chest. Then the gunman backed up through the door. As he left the room, he shot into the crowd, hitting four others in their arms and legs.

The shooter ran outside and jumped in a car with an accomplice. It wasn't long before a police helicopter spotted them, cars gave chase, and the two were arrested.

All the victims went to the hospital, but we had no report on their chances of survival. The victim hit in the leg bled badly. Blood stained the fellowship hall carpet as police stretched yellow tape to cordon off the area. They marked bullet casings, took photos, and interviewed witnesses.

Our guests in the fellowship hall were Hmong. Many of them migrated to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. For over three decades, the 3,500 Hmong in the Tulsa area have lived peacefully. Nothing like this has happened. People questioned whether this was gang-related violence or a hate crime? It was too soon to tell. The Hmong occasionally used our building for their community events.

I considered talking to the media that milled around. What should I say? But after talking with an elder and staff member, we concluded that our work was to console and pray with the Hmong people first—the television news would get their story regardless of what I said. Our work was not media relations.

Instead, I and a couple who had arrived worked to console the Hmong, pray with them, say "we're sorry this happened" and help them clean up the banquet. The meal had just begun when the shooting occurred, and food still steamed in large aluminum trays. The Hmong family hosting the banquet decided to pick up all the food, chairs, tables, and clean up. They left only the crime scene portion of the fellowship hall untouched, where some tables and chairs remained and little triangular bullet casing labels marked the ground between spots of blood.

The hardest question

After a shooting the most common question is also the hardest to answer. Why? Who would do such a thing? The next day, I learned that a family grudge had apparently led to two young men deciding on their own to take revenge on a clan leader. Some of the shooting victims may lose their jobs because they will be healing for several weeks. None of the victims died, however, and the shooters are being held without bail until their trial. God indeed, as I prayed, had mercy on our church. If there could be a "good" outcome in a shooting, all no loss of life and the expectation of justice is about as good as we might expect.

The movies don't show you what happens during the 24 hours after a shooting.

The movies don't show you what happens during the 24 hours after a shooting. What were we supposed to do after the emergency crews left? Should our church meet the next day? Was the whole church a crime scene, or could we use it?

After the police finished their investigation, they said we could clean it up. We were shocked. I guess we never thought about what you do after police investigate. They don't give you a card and say, "Hazmat is coming to clean up." The surreal truth is that we had to sop up blood with towels then use a carpet shampooer and steamer to clean our fellowship hall late Saturday night.

We took the scene as a place of spiritual darkness. We prayed over the blood that was shed, for Christ's blood that was shed for us (and the shooter) to protect the victims' lives. We prayed that justice would be brought to the shooters, and that those traumatized would be healed. Our Hmong friends prayed with us in their language, we gathered in a circle around the crime scene, and we comforted one another. No one cried. We were all still in shock.

I was impressed with the way the Hmong handled the situation. They were apologetic and gracious. As calm, sensitive, efficient, and loving people, they called on their clan leaders to talk to the families of the victims and encourage them not to think of retaliation—justice can be done in the courts.

After we had cleaned up the blood, picked up shards of bone from a victim's shattered leg, stacked chairs, vacuumed, prayed again, sent out messages to church members telling them the facts—and that we would be worshiping the next day—we locked up the church and went home. It was close to midnight.

The next day in our Sunday worship, I commended our custodian, the elder board couple, my family, other church members who came to help clean up, the police for catching the shooters quickly, and the Hmong for how they handled the traumatic event.

We fear violence. We hate people who perpetrate it. These are human reactions, and they are normal—but they are not the way Christ calls us to respond.

I told the congregation that fear and hate are the two common responses to something traumatic like this. We fear violence. We hate people who perpetrate it. These are human reactions, and they are normal—but they are not the way Christ calls us to respond. Compared to those responses, Christ's way is literally not of this world. I said we would not respond to this violence with fear or hate. We'll address liability concerns and be in contact with our insurer. We'll address security concerns, but we're not going to fear.

We're not going to respond to violence with more violence and hate. We will not tolerate racial slurs or profiling; we won't make coarse jokes about getting revenge, because these are not appropriate. We're not going to have endless meetings about security. There is no guarantee of safety. We'll take appropriate steps to make sure we are secure, but we will not promise that "something like this will never happen again." That's not a promise we can keep.

That morning, I read Matthew 5:43-47 with our congregation, because this is the Christian response from our Lord Jesus Christ to those who want to harm us. It's the very time in trauma and suffering and persecution that we need to hear these words again, in real-life situations:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" (Mt.5:43-47).

Then I prayed: "Holy Father, we are so sorry for what has happened here in the last twenty-four hours, in the place where we worship you, where the community meets. We're concerned for the victims, for justice for the shooters, but we do not hate them. We ask that you forgive them and change their lives in a powerful way. Help us not to follow the paths so worn in our society of fear or hate. Help us to tread the path of love that is not an easy kind of path, it's the hardest path of all. Help us follow in the path of Jesus Christ, who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He gave us his example of dying on the cross for us. When we're called upon, help us to risk our very lives for your cause. We believe that to have faith may lead us down that very path because you said that we too must pick up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow you. Help us to do that when called upon. We ask your blessings on the Hmong community at large, for the meetings, concerns, and their healing that must take place. Help us in every way possible for us to be involved in a helpful, constructive, and loving way."

That same Sunday, the Hmong-American Association met about security concerns and decided to move forward with their plans for more gatherings in our church facility and grounds. Two weeks after the shooting, for the seventh year in a row, the Hmong celebrated their New Year's Festival in the same fellowship hall where the shooting occurred, and on our church grounds.

The Hmong chose to respond to the shooting peacefully, between fear and hate, and so we too choose to respond with the teaching of our Lord: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Greg R. Taylor is lead minister of Garnett Church of Christ in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His most recent book, also related to violence is Lay Down Your Guns: One Doctor's Battle for Hope and Healing in Honduras (Leafwood, 2013).