Pastoral Letter, May 8, 2023

Over the weekend, at least two episodes of violence took the lives of multiple victims within the geography of the Christian Church in the Southwest.  On Saturday, a gunman opened fire at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas taking eight lives and wounding seven others.  On Sunday at a bus stop in Brownsville, Texas, a driver drove into a crowd of immigrants killing at least eight persons, injuring eleven. Whether his actions were intentional or accidental is still undetermined. These two events come just one week following a mass shooting in Cleveland, Texas where five people were killed.  The impacts of these incidents on persons, their families, communities and beyond are extensive.  Anytime the church speaks of tragic events where multiple lives have been lost, injured, and emotionally wounded, I believe we must remind ourselves that individual persons are involved. They are more than numbers. Each one of the twenty-one people killed, each one of the twenty people injured and each one of the thousands of witnesses whose lives have been forever changed has a treasured and precious life. They are known by God and they are loved.

As members of the Christian Church in the Southwest, I ask that you pray especially for your fellow Disciples in the communities impacted. The members of First Christian Church, Allen, Texas  and Iglesia Cristiana Bella Vista, Brownsville are working alongside their fellow community members to bring healing and restoration even as the work through their own experiences of shock and secondary trauma. 

These events overlap ongoing politicized debates about immigration, border security, and gun control.  It is tempting to rely on familiar scripts.  I believe it is time we admit that our pre-formed talking points are not serving us well.  The violence in our culture requires us to unlearn our learned helplessness. I believe that our communities, states and nation need to make changes in our legal, mental health, and community engagement systems along with a host of other changes. I empathize with those who say thoughts and prayers are not enough.  So may our thoughts become our prayers, our prayers become our intentions, and our intentions become our actions.