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Town needs grace to recover from shooting, pastor says


From NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>
Date 08 Dec 1999 13:50:59

Dec. 8, 1999      News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-71B{662}

NOTE: Conference editors who use this story in full are asked to include the
credit line also.

By Boyce Bowdon*

FORT GIBSON, Okla. (UMNS) - God's grace is needed for healing in this
community, according to the pastor of the teen-ager who is being held for
shooting and wounding five classmates. 

"Fort Gibson is a wonderful community," said the Rev. Jeff Burress, pastor
of First United Methodist Church. "But during the coming days, with God's
help, we are going to pull together even more, and we are going to find
better ways to guide young people and people of all ages, so that this will
become an even better place to live and to raise a family."

Burress spoke in a Dec. 7 interview in Fort Gibson, a northeast Oklahoma
town with less than 4,000 people and at least 20 churches. As he spoke, four
children were in hospitals suffering from gunshot wounds they received on
the morning of Dec. 6 at Fort Gibson Middle School. A fifth child was
recovering at home.  

Seth Trickey, 13, was being held in an Oklahoma juvenile detention center in
connection with the shooting. The boy and his family are members of First
Church, along with several of the school's teachers, the assistant
superintendent and the president of the school board.

"The question everyone is asking is why?" Burress said. "Seth is an honor
student, he's popular at school, his family is active in our church and
community. He turned 13 last Friday and spent the weekend celebrating his
birthday. He's a good kid."

The afternoon of the shooting, Burress visited Seth at the courthouse in
Muskogee. Reporters asked him how Seth had responded. "All I told them was
that he was somber," the pastor said.

The evening of the shooting, First Church hosted a special gathering for
students and family members of the community. About 250 people attended.

"We called it a safe service," Burress explained. "We thanked God that
nobody was killed, we prayed for the children who were shot and for their
families, and we prayed for Seth and his family. Pastors of other churches
talked briefly, and so did several public leaders, including the lieutenant
governor of Oklahoma."

During his five-minute message, Burress talked about two things, both
starting with the letter "G." The first: guilt. The second: grace.

"At a time like this," he said, "it's awfully easy for us to point an
accusing finger and to place blame. As Seth's pastor, I can place a lot of
guilt on myself. Maybe I could have said or done something that might have
prevented this. Seth's dad, his mom, his brother, his sister, his teachers,
his Sunday school teacher, his classmates -- all of us could beat ourselves
up for something we did or didn't do. But placing blame and feeling guilty
isn't what we need to be doing right now.  

"Of course, we need to accept responsibility for what we have done and for
what we have failed to do that has caused others to suffer in this instance
and in other instances. But laying guilt on ourselves or others isn't the
answer. The grace of God is the answer.

"God's grace is great enough to enable us to cope with the worst that can
happen and to learn from it. God can bring good from everything, even things
that don't make any sense and knock us to our knees. Not only should we
accept God's grace for ourselves, we should pass it on to everyone
involved."

The safe service featured several prayer hymns and lasted about an hour.
Afterward, a period was offered for people to embrace one another and share
feelings.

To assist with the ministry in Fort Gibson, the Oklahoma Conference Circle
of Care (Children, Youth and Family Ministries) is providing counseling for
the children and their parents and conducting training for adults designed
to help them minister to emotional and spiritual issues.

Burress said he is grateful for the kind spirit people in the community have
toward the Trickey family. "The one message that our church and community
have for Seth and his family is 'we love you,' " he said.

"Long after Fort Gibson is out of the headlines, people in our community
will need the ministry of care that God can provide through our church,"
Burress said. "We are not here to explain why bad things happen to good
people or why good people do bad things. We are here to help all people --
people who cause violence and people who suffer from violence -- experience
God's grace so they can overcome fear and anger and live in peace with hope
and love."

During the past year, some faith-based efforts have focused on preventing
youth violence. A videotape of a United Methodist-produced teleconference on
youth violence, entitled "Kids, Guns, Violence: How to Make a Difference,"
is available by calling 1-800-251-4091. It is accompanied by a kit that
guides viewers through an on-air dialogue among youth, parents, teachers,
church leaders, university personnel, and government agencies. 
At the end of the teleconference, the panel of featured experts asks the
viewers to make a commitment toward making a difference in their community.
When the teleconference originally aired in May of this year, hundreds of
people nationwide participated. The 90-minute broadcast was uplinked live
from the Nashville studios of United Methodist Communications to 600
downlink sites in 48 states plus the Bahamas. 
Also available to parents and young people off the FaithHome Web site is a
set of booklets to help parents talk to young people about violence and
anger management, among other topics. "Saying nothing is exactly the wrong
thing for parents to do," said Susan Sally, new ventures director of the
United Methodist Publishing House. 
The booklets provide practical tips on how to talk to young people about
violence and anger, and how to constructively monitor television programming
and other media exposure. In addition, two of them -- "Your Child and
Violence" and "Your Child and Anger" -- cite relevant Scriptures and contain
prayers for peace and for related topics. They also tell parents how to spot
the warning signs of violence and how to coordinate nonviolent activities.
The eight-page booklets, put together by family therapists and pastors, can
be found on the FaithHome Web site (www.faithhome.com) along with other
resources. 
# # #

*Bowdon is the editor of Contact, the newspaper of the Oklahoma Annual
Conference. Some information for this story was taken from a Disaster News
Network report by Susan Kim.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://www.umc.org/umns


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