Families find solace in church groups, prayers, counseling

Knots of New Life Church members met in small groups Monday in homes, businesses and restaurants to pray and take solace in one another.

Pastors and congregations from across Colorado Springs also provided grief counseling and prayers.

New Life has now experienced two traumatic events in the past 13 months. The first was the loss of its founding pastor, Ted Haggard, who resigned after admitting to “sexual immorality” after being linked to a male prostitute.

Since Haggard’s departure, the informal groups, which number more than 1,000, meet weekly to provide a more personal experience at a church that is larger than many towns.

Jim Jones, a 10-year New Life member, likened them to his backpack: “The groups are like ripstop nylon — the fabric that prevents the church from tearing in times like this.

“I thought New Life would split and be damaged after Pastor Ted left. I’ve known churches under stress that did not survive. But our 1,000 groups made the huge difference in that survival.”

His “financial peace” group met Monday afternoon for its regular class. But another type of peace was addressed.

“Take care of us that we are not defeated even if killed,” he prayed. “Surround us with angels and take away our fears.”

Steven Babcock, another group member at the meeting, said, “You don’t have to wander and look for a sense of security. We have each other.”

Others from the Christian community helped.

Pastor Steve Holt of Mountain Springs Church set his own congregation to praying for New Life Church all day Monday, opening his sanctuary.

Holt, whose church has 3,500 members, said he gave spiritual solace to two of the New Life shooting victims and their families.

Holt was at Penrose Hospital to see one of his own congregation members who’d had a stroke, when someone told him about the emergency unfolding downstairs. He rushed to the emergency room where Judy Purcell’s family waited while she received treatment for a shoulder wound.

Holt said he was amazed that he was at the right place at the right time to give aid. “I am never at Penrose, or that side of town,” he said. “It had to be in the Sovereign’s hand that that I was there.”

He said he prayed with the crying family and stayed with them until New Life pastors arrived.

Monday, New Life Associate Pastor Mel Waters was among a dozen counselors at Woodmen Valley Chapel’s Rockrimmon Campus Community Center, where crisis counseling was going on because the New Life campus was closed for the day. Waters said he could relate to the emotional aftershock felt by church members: He was separated from his two sons, 11 and 13, for four hours after the shootings.

Waters said he and his wife were rushed out of the building Sunday after gunshots rang out on the main floor.

Their sons Mark, 11, and Matt, 13, were in his second-floor office.

“I called them and told them to turn the lights out and lock the doors and get under the desk,” Waters said. “They stayed under my desk for four hours.”

Despite his worries, he helped counsel some of the hundreds of people in the adjacent World Prayer Center during the lockdown. He said he kept in touch with his sons by phone.

“Five heavily armed policemen rescued them from the room,” Waters said. “They thought it was cool. I thought it was scary.”

Families, couples and individuals trickled into the Rockrimmon church Monday. An e-mail sent to parents of Academy School District 20 students referred people to school counselors or Woodmen Valley.

“You can’t delay people who have needs in counseling,” said Woodmen Valley Executive Pastor Doug Olsen, who asked reporters not to interview people seeking help.

One woman seeking counseling said she came after talking to police, who continued interviewing witnesses today.

Some seeking help weren’t New Life members, said Brent Williams, Woodmen Valley pastor counselor. “They are in shock,” he said.

Kelly Maness, 25, was one of the people who prayed at Mountain Springs on Monday. “People do bad things, and our responsibility as Christians is not to cower,” she said.

Her pastor, Holt, said that during the developments of the past two days, “I keep thinking of Psalm 23, Verse 4: ‘fear no evil, fear no evil.’ As pastors and people of faith in Colorado Springs, we need to be courageous and remember that God is with us and not to be filled with fear.”