GRAND BLANC, Mich. (WXYZ) — Church leaders in Grand Blanc are stepping in to support the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints community after a gunman killed four people and injured 10 others Sunday morning.
Several local congregations are offering office space and rooms for worship services, while others are organizing prayer gatherings to help the community grieve and process the tragedy.
Watch Jolie Sherman's video report below:
Grand Blanc is home to different faith traditions, but many church leaders are stepping in to help their neighbors and opening their doors in this time of need.
"It was just prior to our 10:45 a.m. service that somebody came to me and said 'we just heard from our friends. They're hiding in the woods. What do we do?'" said Jeffery Heimsoth, senior pastor of Faith Lutheran Church.
Heimsoth's church is located about a mile from where the tragedy occurred Sunday morning, when a gunman rammed his car into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, fired multiple rounds killing and injuring several people before setting the church ablaze.
Related video: Police chaplain responds to Grand Blanc church attack
"You know, it really hits home when it's in your backyard," said Ethel Bence, a Grand Blanc resident. "You think that your church is a safe place to be. We don't have politics in our churches. We got there to pray, to worship and to have somebody violate that, it's just a horrendous thing."
"We could hear the smoke as we worshiped here. We could hear the sirens as we worshiped here," Heimsoth said. "In the middle of the service, one of the members grabbed me and took me back. She just got notification that a former preschool student that had come here was one of the shooting victims. She and her father were hospitalized and are OK, but at that point in time, we knew nothing of what was going on."
A day after the attack, Heimsoth met with his staff to coordinate support efforts.
"This worshipping community at the Latter-day Saints Church, they are our neighbors, and so our question this morning is how can we serve them?" Heimsoth said.
Faith Lutheran Church has offered to host a dinner for the LDS community when they're ready.
"Even though we try and find understanding around what happened and why it happened, we'll never really fully get it," said Brian West, lead pastor at Grand Blanc United Methodist Church.
Related video: Police say all accounted for after deadly church attack
West, who has led the Methodist congregation for more than five years, said his doors are also open to anyone looking for a place to worship.
"We're in the midst right now of reaching out not just to the LDS community in Grand Blanc but to everyone in the community to try and find ways to be a source of light in the midst of a dark time," West said.
Faith Lutheran Church is hosting a prayer service for the community at 7 p.m. Monday. Grand Blanc's United Methodist Church is also planning a prayer service scheduled for Wednesday at 6 p.m.
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