As the residents of Barrow County, Georgia — and especially the students at Apalachee High School — deal with the aftermath of a Sept. 4 school shooting, Baptist churches are working together to provide support.
Mark Marshall, senior lead strategist of Church Strengthening for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, told a meeting of the state executive committee in Warner Robins on Tuesday (Sept. 10) that Georgia Baptists “were on the front lines” of the response effort.
From making counselors available to returning students, having chaplains present to pray and offer support to grieving residents — or simply providing labor to set up new facilities — Georgia Baptist churches and volunteers are working to meet the needs of Barrow County.
When students in other Barrow County schools returned to class on Tuesday morning, they were greeted by youth and student pastors from across the state. Stephen Crane, Next Gen pastor at River Hills Church in Winder, helped coordinate counselors for returning students.
‘Uniquely placed’
Crane says the church’s Scott Dakin was “uniquely placed as a former Fire Captain and Director of the Ministry Village, a counseling ministry in Winder, to be the one coordinating counseling for our community.” Crane and Dakin agreed that ministers would be need on site, as well as trained counselors when students went back to school.
Crane collaborated with Chris Trent, GBMB’s NextGen catalyst, to provide two to three ministers at each school. “The school system graciously allowed us to be there,” Crane said. In addition to pastors from local churches such as River Hills, Bethlehem Church, Winder First Baptist Church and others, nearly 40 people from churches as far as 4 hours away came to help. “We put out the ‘all call,’” Trent said, “and the response was awesome.”
Crane added that their church family was impacted directly by the shooting, as they have some 10 students that attend Apalachee High School and dealt with the incident, from being locked down in the school to making it safely outside. Additionally, a number of first responders and teachers that work in the school system are attenders at River Hills.
“Our community has really gathered around each other and had some huge God moments to celebrate,” Crane said. “Between first responders, the school system, local churches and businesses there has been such an outpouring of love.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Henry Durand and originally published by the Christian Index.
