NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–On Monday, Sept. 11, Baptist Press will publish a special eight-page magazine to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Wedgwood Baptist Church — the worst case of church violence in the nation’s history.
“Wedgwood’s Amazing Grace,” will feature interviews with students, church staff and members, first-person essays and a special town hall meeting comprised of high school students who were caught in the crossfire when a lone gunman walked into the Fort Worth, Texas, church and opened fire on a gathering of teenage worshippers. When the shooting stopped, seven people were dead, seven others were injured and a nation was left wondering how something like this could happen in a house of worship.
“I think it is deserving that Southern Baptists should honor those whose lives were taken and also to celebrate the lives of those who, through God’s grace, triumphed over this personal tragedy,” said Will Hall, vice president for convention news with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee.
The project is coordinated by Todd Starnes, assistant editor of Baptist Press, and will feature the photography of veteran photojournalist Jim Veneman.
Starnes will lead a team of reporters on assignment in Fort Worth to study the impact the shootings had on the church and how the congregation is responding one year later.
“What happened at Wedgwood had a profound impact on every Southern Baptist church in the country,” Starnes said. “It is an incredible story in the sense that it could have happened at any Southern Baptist church in the country.”
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