Deliver us from Evil
Brett Lawrence
January 1, 2000
The people were seated, and Pastor Dennis Rogers was at the pulpit.
"Let us pray," he said.
then chaos.
A bomb shattered the silence of Sunday prayer. The explosion ripped through the heart of a sanctuary and its worshipers.
The bomb, which investigators discovered had been left outside the building near a central air-conditioning unit, tore a 10-by-15 foot hole in the sanctuary wall adjacent to the church's youth-seating section. Of the 35 people injured that morning, more than 20 were teenagers.
When Rogers reflects on that Memorial Day weekend in 1998, he realizes it could have been much worse.
Now, more than a year and a half later, the veteran of more than 20 years of ministry says the congregation at First Assembly of God in Danville, Illinois, is stronger than it has ever been.
Rogers knows people should feel safe in God's house. But he, like many pastors, struggles with how to protect those who attend his church while remaining an open, welcoming community where people can come freely to find Christ.
"We want to provide a secure worship environment for our staff, our members, and our guests," says Ron Aguiar, director of safety and security at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, a congregation of about 17,000. "Because it's a church, I have to balance how I do it. I cannot put magnetometers on the front doors and use metal detectors.
"We're seeking the lost—you want the people that the police are after to come in. Essentially, when I work with our police department, they'll say, 'Hey man, these guys are undesirable.' I say, 'Hey man, this is where they need to be.' And so there's a delicate balance that you have to achieve."
Few people understand the struggle to find that balance like Al Meredith, pastor ...
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