Senior Pastor Rick Phillips has written, and the church has made public on websites and Facebook, a pastoral letter expressing the church’s care and concern for both the affected family and the congregation. (Original Story here)

Dear Second Presbyterian Church family,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). I want to give praise to God for His protection of our congregation during the frightening events of last Sunday morning and also for the grace He has shown to members who are in distress. Together with all of you, I deeply grieve the actions of our dear friend and the loss of his life. May God comfort each of you according to your particular need through the ministry of His Holy Spirit.

It was personally grieving to me that an event like this should happen while I was absent from the church. We were well served, however, by the church officers who were present. On behalf of the entire congregation, I give my heartfelt thanks to our deacons, who responded to the situation with such good judgment and decisiveness. We are all grateful for our deacons and give praise to God for their faithfulness. I also wish to praise the pastors who were presiding Sunday morning, Robert Spears and Seth Starkey, for their leadership and ministry. There are many others who deserve to be praised as well. Overall, we have abundant cause to honor God for His sovereign protection and grace to our church.

I want to encourage our members not to be afraid to return to the church building or sanctuary. If you are particularly distressed, please let us know so that we can minister to you. This is a time for us to show our faith in the Lord. God will protect us. By means of the peace He gives and the faith that answers our fears, we have an opportunity to bear testimony to God’s faithfulness as the Protector of His people. Meanwhile, the elders and deacons will be discussing the lessons we should learn from this incident and will inform you of any safety precautions or procedures we deem necessary. Please feel free to share your concerns with us or to ask any questions as you may have them.

An incident like this reminds us of how precious our church family is to all of us. It calls us to love one another in the grace that God gives. It calls us to greater fervor in prayer. And it calls us to give thanks to the Lord, who neither slumbers nor sleeps but guards His people, watching over our “going out and coming in, both now and forever” (Ps. 121:4, 8).

Thank you all for your prayers and support of the Pennington family. They will need many prayers in the days and weeks to come and I am sure that your love will be a great blessing to them in this trying time. Sadly, many false and wounding statements have been made on social media sites by people who could not possibly have accurate knowledge of the circumstances and situation. Pray for God to protect this dear family from these harmful untruths and to draw each of them closer to Him for the grace that they need.

May God bless you all.

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Rick Phillips