WASHINGTON — “Today they are worshiping at Mother Emanuel Church,” Rev. William Lamar, pastor of the Metropolitan AME Church in Northwest, D.C. told his congregation Sunday morning.
The doors of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened Sunday, days after nine people were gunned down during Bible study.
Rev. Lamar read a litany to his D.C. congregation, (the same litany was read at African Methodist Episcopal churches Sunday nationwide) “Oh God, the doors of the church are still open.”
Rev. Lamar says he knew the pastor at Emanuel AME in South Carolina, who was one of the nine killed. He says it’s difficult but says “That the doors remain open and we will not be feared into militarizing our churches. They remain spaces of hospitality and all are welcomed.”
Sunday’s services at the Metropolitan AME Church in Northwest were about honoring the victims.
“But we don’t need to return to normalcy, we need a new spirit and a new narrative in this nation,” Lamar said.
Not only was his church lifting up the victims’ families in prayer but was also lifting up in prayer the man arrested for the shootings.
”In the spirit of those at Mother Emanuel praying for (Dylann) Roof and his family and praying for forgiveness,” he said.
