USA/Canada regional director calls for prayer, racial reconciliation

USA/Canada regional director calls for prayer, racial reconciliation

by | 22 Jun 2015
Members of the Moncks Corner Church of the Nazarene and others gather in prayer for the Charleston community.
Last week a gunman entered the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire in a prayer meeting, killing nine people. The Church of the Nazarene is among the many denominations joining in prayer for the AME church and Charleston community. 
 
USA/Canada Regional Director Bob Broadbooks released the following letter to global Nazarenes, asking for continued prayer and racial reconciliation:
 
Greetings,
 
Recent events in a house of God in Charleston, South Carolina, have broken the hearts of peace-loving people everywhere. We are sad that we are not entirely shocked by such events, which too often typify our lives. We have seen similar senseless violence transpire in schools, restaurants, and places of business. Now, to see a massacre occur in a peaceful place of prayer and worship breaks our hearts again. Decades ago, those who remember when four beautiful African-American girls were bombed in a Baptist church on 16th Street in Birmingham, Alabama, will recall the disbelief that a human being could subject another human being to such horror. 
 
The Church of the Nazarene is grieving today and calls upon our people to pray for the families of the nine victims who were slain at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. We are moved by the expressions of forgiveness toward the perpetrator as expressed by family members of the deceased. We long for hatred to be banished and for peace to be established among us. We join our hearts in praying that God will help us to be numbered among the peacemakers that Jesus taught us to be when He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). May God help all Nazarenes to seek racial reconciliation and to strive to love people of every race, nation, culture, and class as one related human family.
 
Praying for peace,
 
Robert Broadbooks
USA/Canada Regional Director
 
Jerry D. Porter
J. K. Warrick
Eugénio R. Duarte
David W. Graves
David A. Busic 
Gustavo A. Crocker
 
Board of General Superintendents
Church of the Nazarene
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