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Please Pray: YWAM and New Life
By Jeremy | December 9, 2007
Please join us in praying for those affected by today's shooting at the Youth with a Mission base in Denver. Below is the official statement from YWAM concerning the shooting.
The tragedy hits close to home because YWAM has been a ministry partner since the 1980s. In the last 20 years, Abounding Grace and Generation Xcel have hosted hundreds of YWAM students, including scores who have slept on AGM's floors and dozens who have volunteered at Xcel. In 1999, a dozen students from YWAM Los Angeles interned at Xcel for two months after Mayor Giuliani gave our space back. (Here's a photo of the 1999 summer staff, including students from Germany, Finland, Brazil, Canada, LA, Miami and elsewhere.) I also went with YWAM to Russia in the summer of 1992, a year after Communism fell there.
Official YWAM Press Release
A lone gunman entered a Youth With A Mission training center in the Denver, Colorado suburb of Arvada early Sunday morning, opening fire and hitting four members of the staff. All were taken to local hospitals and two later died of their injuries. The two wounded remain in serious condition. The gunman has not yet been apprehended, and police are continuing their search for him. The deceased have been identified as Tiffany Johnson, 26, from Minnesota, and Philip Crouse, 24, from Alaska. Both served as staff members at the Youth With A Mission Arvada campus. The third victim, Dan Griebenow, 24, has a bullet in his neck and is listed in critical but stable condition. The fourth victim Charlie Blanch, 22, suffered gunshot wounds to his legs. Peter Warren, the Director of Youth with a Mission Denver says they had just finished a Christmas banquet when the suspect arrived and asked a 22-year-old woman from Minnesota if he could be housed for the evening. When she told him they could not house him, that's when, Warren says, the suspect opened fired with an automatic handgun, hitting four people. Police say they do not know whether the shooting was random or if there was a motive. Warren says, "The young man – I don't know who he is; I don't think [the victims] knew him – but he must be going through a lot personally in his own life to do something like this. Our belief is that only God is the judge and our place is to forgive and that's a difficult thing to do, but really, I think it's the right thing to do," said Warren. There are about 80 people living on the Arvada campus and they have been transported to the group's mountain campus near Golden, Colorado where they will stay while the murder investigation is processed at their residence. Warren says they are trying to deal with this situation as best as they can. "There's no blueprint for this," said Warren. "You know, we're just going to be honest, we're going to pray with one another and cry with one another. These kids were like our kids, you know. It's just such a tragedy, but who knows what's going on in this young man's life." Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is an international and interdenominational Christian movement with operating locations in 171 nations. Launched in 1960 as a means for young people to get involved in short-term missionary service, it now has over 16 000 staff working in 1180 centers and trains over 25 000 people each year to be involved in the organization’s primary goal – to know God and make Him known. YWAM is hugely varied in its approach, operating such ministries as drop-in centers for street children in South America; hospice care for AIDs victims in Africa; literacy and job creation programs throughout Asia; and is well known for its quick response and long-term commitment to global disasters, such as the 2006 tsunami. YWAM International Chairman Lynn Green released this statement: "We feel a deep sense of loss today and we grieve with the families and those who were very close friends of the victims. Our surviving students and staff are being well cared for and we have total confidence in those who are responsible for the training program in Arvada to care for those who have been subjected to this assault. "Those who lost their lives had dedicated themselves to serve and we feel the sorrow of their absence. Yet we take comfort from the assurance of everlasting life for those who follow Christ in loving service to others. "It is a great tragedy that our culture seems to produce so many deeply troubled people who express their frustration in violence. We forgive the assailant and we rededicate ourselves to serving young people in the hope that we might bring healing to other needy youth."
UPDATE
I feel out of the loop today, because I just heard that a second Colorado shooting occurred outside New Life Church in Colorado Springs. I have friends who attend New Life, and student volunteers from the church served at Xcel in 2005. loan no cash advance paydayday information advance loan online payday cash advances net loans paycredit u loans adverseadverse unsecured credit loansloan uk adverse credit no checkloan advisoraffordable mortgage loanshome filing after bankruptcy loanag loans propertyTopics: new lfe church, shootings, tragedy, violence, ywam, ywam denver | 3 Comments »
December 10th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Wow! What a tragedy. We don’t expect these kinds of things to happen in our churches. Should we begin to recruit volunteers for a piece packing ministries in churches throughout America.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:48 am
New LIfe Church security guard Jeanne Assam 42 speaks Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 about killing Matthew Murray on Sunday as he went on a killing spree at the Colorado Springs church.
“I took cover. I identified myself. I engaged him. I took him down,” the 42-year-old former law officer and volunteer church security guard said Monday at a news conference in the Colorado Springs police station.
“I just said, ‘Holy Spirit, be with me.’ I wasn’t even shaking,” Assam said. “I give the credit to God. I say this very humbly. God was with me.”
Read Full Article Here
December 11th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
The Newsmedia displayed their anti-gun bias once again.
Most of the reports I read, just stated a secruity guard difussed the situation, no mention of her using a gun.
Only conservative websites and blogs stated she used her gun to take him down.