First United Methodist Church of Starkville welcomed community members of all faiths Tuesday at 6 p.m. to support the victims and victims’ families of Sunday’s Orlando shooting. The community wide service, “Praying for Peace,” encouraged people from the Starkville area to unite in prayer and to reflect on the deadliest mass shooting in United States history.
“As we respond to this tragedy, we respond with grief,” said Jake Adams-Wilson, an associate pastor at First United Methodist. “But we also respond by looking inward.”
The congregation of 40 prayed, sang and grieved during the service, and Adams-Wilson and other church leaders stressed the importance of “accepting love and fighting hate and oppression.”
“Why prayer?” Adams-Wilson asked in his greeting to the crowd gathered in the church’s Connection building.
The pastor stood near a candle-lit altar topped with a colorful, mosaic cross which marked the center of the church room.
“As Christians, we respond to these things in prayer,” he said. “We get together and pray.”
Linda Wells, a Starkville resident and member of Adaton United Methodist Church, says she came to the service to pray and support. Wells, who has family members living in Orlando, says the prayer service is a small part, but she feels as though she is “helping to heal the tragedy.”
“If we don’t stop the hating, we’re not going to stop that,” Wells says, referring to the Orlando shooting.
After a talk about grief and mourning, pastor Stacey Parvin of Beth-Eden Lutheran Church called for a moment of silence. She asked service participants to write thoughts and prayers on multicolored ribbons during the silent time and weave them into a nearby wooden shutter frame.
A line formed to one side of the church room. People, ribbons in hand, peacefully awaited their turn to add their written messages to the wooden frame to create a single colorful display.
The soft strum of a guitar filled the silence. People embraced as they placed their ribbons.
Audience member, artist, and Starkville resident Paul Buckley says he wrote “God, please let me know peace” on one of the several ribbons he held.
Service guitarist Emily Mabry, a Starkville resident and regular musician for First United Methodist’s contemporary church service, says this was the first service concerning a current event she had participated in with the church.
“I think what was most powerful about it was having so many people from so many different backgrounds,” says Mabry.
The backgrounds of individuals from the congregation did not seem so different, however, as they came together for a common cause: love.
Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Starkville will host another service Thursday, June 16, at 6 p.m. in support of the Orlando community. According to a Facebook post by Bert Montgomery, pastor of University Baptist Church in Starkville, Thursday’s interfaith service will include readings and prayers from Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions and emphasize diversity and equality.
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