In 2007, the unthinkable happened at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
A gunman opened fire outside the church, just as its midday service had dismissed. His bullets hit several members of the same family as they left, wounding David Works and killing his two teenage daughters, Rachel and Stephanie.
More than 600 people were on the church campus when Matthew Murray — a 24-year-old man armed with an assault rifle, two pistols and enough ammunition to kill 100 people — made his way inside the building, church pastor Brady Boyd remembered.
“I know there’s a great theological debate about what Jesus would do,” he told RNS. “I just know firsthand for me, on the day the shooting happened on our campus, we lost two very good, sweet, young teenage girls, and that was awful and horrific, but we could have very well lost 100 people that day.”
Boyd believes that didn’t happen because Murray ran into Jeanne Assam, a former police officer and member of the church security team who was legally carrying a pistol. Assam returned fire, ending the attack that had started 12 hours earlier, when the gunman had shot and killed several others at a nearby mission center.
The memories of that day came flooding back for Boyd when he learned of the mass shooting Sunday (Nov. 5) that left 26 people dead and tens more wounded at First Baptist Church in Sutherland…
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