By The Grace of God!

The grace of God, and a pastor’s swift thinking, led to a gunman being disarmed during a New Year’s Eve prayer service at a small Fayettville North Carolina church.

Fortunately, no one was injured during the attempted terror attack. Pastor Larry Wright, pastor of the Heal the Land Outreach Ministries in was praying with about 60 parishioners as they rang in the New Year and spoke about the senseless deaths affecting our country. Suddenly, a man armed with a rifle walked into his the church.

The gun was in “one hand and an ammo magazine with shiny rounds in the other,”Wright said.

Pastor Wright who is a retired Army sergeant first class recognized the weapon was real, and he was worried the man had one round in the gun.

“I’m the first person to see him and when I saw him, I thought it was a dummy gun, but then I saw the bullet clip in his hand and the bullets were shining,” he said.

Pastor Wright said that if the man was antagonistic, he was going to use his 6-foot-2, 230-pound body to tackle him. But he and the congregation began to pray despite what seemed to be impending doom.

Then the gunman asked the church to keeping praying for him. It was then that deacon and three parishoners hugged the him.

He then apologized to the congregation saying “he intended to do something terrible that night. But the Lord spoke to him."

Police Department spokesman Lt. David McLaurin said the incident was noted as a “Call for Service.’’ Notes regarding the call, McLaurin said, indicated the man was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center at his request as a voluntary commitment.

PR