Hey all. I don’t have anything useful to say except to wonder whether your churches and local ministries offered any response to the horrific massacre in Orlando. At Mass yesterday here in DC our priest closed the Prayers of the Faithful by asking us to pray for the victims and their families, for the killer’s family, and for the killer himself, “that love may overcome hate.” His voice stumbled noticeably on that last part for reasons I think we all can understand. Right now we’re trying to work out what our gay & lesbian ministry will do as a memorial. Anyway, I’m interested in what you all have seen so far.
You can donate to a fund for the victims, organized by Equality Florida, here.
Spiritual Friendship 
(Also, not sure if this is necessary, but I’d like to request that comments be about the specific question I asked & not the many other important issues people are discussing w/r/t this shooting. I’d like this to be a pretty focused discussion. Thanks you guys.)
“pray for the victims and their families, for the killer’s family, and for the killer himself”
I think that will the standard response in the majority of churches (including evangelicals) – not that LGBT news sites or bloggers will admit/report it.
It’s your call to restrict the question but making it all about how Christians respond to LGBT targeted Islamist atrocity is pretty much handing the entire narrative to the regressive PC obsessed Left
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. PC obsessed people would not use the phrase “Islamic atrocity”; they would be reluctant to associate Islam–or any of their favored minorities–with anything negative. They would claim the murders were a result of individual pathology alone.
Yeah I’m using those words. The PC crowd wouldn’t. At the moment, the LGBT Left are doing everything they can to make it seem that conservative Christians are in some way partly responsible for this tragedy (whilst ignoring the killers own stated allegiances/motive). Other than prayers I don’t think Christians need to do anything. Of course, they can if they want to.
Hi–this is a reply to both of you. I get that we are all trying to figure out the best overall responses to a terrible event, but I asked people to confine their comments to the specific question of what their churches are doing. This is not the place for debates or for other issues. Please don’t continue in this vein here. Thanks very much.
My church is closed until Sunday. Doing sweet FA at the moment.
Hey all. I wonder whether your churches and local ministries offered any response to the horrific massacre in Istanbul?
Same motive, same ideology but no tweets, vigils or prayers for the victims and their families? Oh and Istanbul Pride was shut down last week and those who did show up tear gassed in case it “provoked” an “extremist” response.
I commented on the Istanbul massacre on Facebook, but not here.
Pray for the victims, and Orlando who are dealing with a mass shooting.
I think most churches responded this way.
We took time to pray for the victims and their families during our “prayers of the people” segment of worship. And then after our musical worship I took space to talk about how we must allow horrific acts such as this to impact our hearts and move us to prayer as we learn how to bear burdens for those who are hurting. We must learn how to weep with the worlds weeping. We talked about how easy it is to become passive when confronted with unspeakable evil, especially when so many such acts are reported to us by media on a daily basis. My deepest desire is that the church I lead would be known for our costly identification with those who suffer in this way. LORD have mercy.
Yes, our church in New Jersey offered prayers for the victims and their families during Mass. One thing I did notice (I hope this is not too off topic) is that among my Facebook friends, there was not an overwhelming outpouring of “prayers for the victims”. Most of them are very devout Catholics and strong Christians. I am wondering if they are not sure how to express their prayers without sounding that they support the gay lifestyle. However, I was very consoled and encouraged to hear from Pope Francis and the US bishops urging us all to pray.
“The merciful love of Christ calls us to solidarity with the suffering and to ever greater resolve in protecting the life and dignity of every person.” Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz
I am only aware of 4 churches in my local small town area that posted anything in relation to Orlando. This was yesterday evening and I only looked at 48 churches. One was the Salvation Army deploying a food truck for the rescue workers. The other three were a church who expressed sympathy and prayers.