Associated Baptist Press
March 16, 2009 · (09-38)
David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer
In this issue
Widow of slain pastor says she isn't angry at accused killer (382 words)
Church gathers for worship week after pastor slain (640 words)
Slain Baptist pastor hailed as hero, martyr (729 words)
Gift of $2 million to fund new chapel on Central Seminary campus (409 words)
Widow of slain pastor says she isn't angry at accused killer
By Bob Allen (382 words)
MARYVILLE, Ill. (ABP) -- The widow of slain Baptist pastor Fred Winters says she harbors no anger toward her husband's alleged murderer.
"I do not have any hatred or even hard feelings toward him," Cindy Winters said March 16 on the CBS Early Show. "We have been praying for him."
She said one of the first things her daughter said after the attack was that she hoped the accused gunman, 27-year-old Terry Sedlacek, would somehow come to "love Jesus" because of the experience.
"We are not angry at all," Winters said.
She said she does not have any opinion about what should happen to Sedlacek in the legal system but she hopes that he "finds peace with God."
"I hope that he understands that God loves him in spite of his sin, and he can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
Winters said she and her daughters are holding up well under the circumstances. "I think I'm a great example that prayer works," she said.
Winters said she did not know Sedlacek and had never seen him before, but now she would like to reach out to his parents.
"In some way we have been united through this crisis, and when they are ready I have a desire to meet them and let them know personally that I love them and in some way I feel their pain. I feel like we're united together in our pain."
"The way I was comforted by others, I have a desire to comfort them."
Winters said she is grateful that neither she nor either of her daughters was in the early service March 8 during the attack. She said she attends the second of the church's three regular morning worship services and had not yet left home. Her older daughter was at church, but helping out in the nursery.
"None of us, fortunately, were in the service to experience what happened, and I am so grateful to God for that," she said.
She also said she knows that coping with her loss is going to be a long process. "I know that the same way God got me through last Sunday, he's going to get me through the next week and he is going to get me through the next 10 years," she said.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Church gathers for worship week after pastor slain
By Bob Allen (640 words)
MARYVILLE, Ill. (ABP) -- One of a select fraternity of pastors who has experienced a church shooting consoled and challenged an Illinois Baptist congregation one week after its popular pastor was fatally shot while preaching his Sunday sermon..
"You are the most prayed-for church in all of Christendom this morning," Al Meredith, pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, told worshipers in one of three morning worship services March 15 at First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill.
Meredith delivered the sermon from the pulpit where 45-year-old Pastor Fred Winters' life was cut short March 8, when Terry Joe Sedlacek, 27, of nearby Troy, Ill., killed Winters with a gunshot wound to the heart. No motive for the shooting has been revealed, but Sedlacek's family claims he is mentally ill.
Meredith's church suffered similar violence nearly a decade ago, when 47-year-old Larry Gene Ashbrook interrupted a youth prayer service with gunfire that killed seven and wounded seven others. Meredith warned the Illinois congregation it is "heading into uncharted waters" in dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy. He said the old hymn line, "every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before" is "baloney."
"Every day with Jesus is not sweeter than the day before," he said. "Some days are evil days, and last Sunday was an evil day."
Still, he said, the message of the gospel is, "there is hope in this violent world."
"That's why the media are so eager to hear your story, because it's so unique," he said. "We live in a hopeless world."
Describing in detail events of Sept. 15, 1999, that turned Wedgwood Baptist Church into "a killing field for a hopeless madman," Meredith said one question asked during an initial press conference was if there is anywhere in society that is safe.
"Of course not," Meredith said. "We live in a hostile world. The only real place of safety is in the center of God's will." But even that, he said, does not guarantee against untimely death.
Another question Meredith said he received was, "where was God?" when the shooting took place.
"God is exactly were he was when his own dear son was cruelly tortured and murdered," he said. "He is a parent who knows what it's like to lose his only son."
Meredith said God is in control and gives Christians who struggle the ability to get through when they need it.
He also said there are members of his church who are still having counseling nearly 10 years after the tragedy. He warned the Maryville congregation to reach out for help and avoid the "phoniness" of claiming "victory in Jesus" and going it alone.
"Get help from the body of Christ," he advised. "We are still struggling."
Meredith said the Wedgwood tragedy gave him numerous opportunities to share a Christian witness through the mass media.
"God has given us hope and peace in the face of life's worst tragedies," he said. "God gives a peace that the world doesn't understand."
On the other hand, Meredith said, tragedy can cause doubt.
"Faith is not having no doubts," he said. "In fact, faith necessitates doubt."
It's one thing to believe in God when everything makes sense, he said. It's when "God pushes into the abyss where it doesn't make sense" that faith comes into play.
"You don't really have faith until you're pushed beyond your controls," Meredith said. "Most of you are control freaks, and you want to have all your ducks in a row, and last week your ducks all fell apart."
Meredith challenged the Maryville congregation "it is time to put up or shut up" about their faith.
"You are what you are under pressure," he said. "If you squeeze an orange, you don't get Dr Pepper.... When you're squeezed, what's on the inside is what comes out."
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Slain Baptist pastor hailed as hero, martyr
By Bob Allen (729 words)
MARYVILLE, Ill. (ABP) -- A fellow pastor and former church member hailed slain Baptist preacher Fred Winters as a "hero and a martyr" at a memorial service at First Baptist Church of Maryville, Ill., March 13.
"I believe with all my heart Pastor Fred died as a hero and a martyr," Tim Cowin, pastor of the The Rock Church in nearby St. Louis, said of his friend of more than 20 years, who was struck down by a gunman's bullet while preaching from the same pulpit March 8.
Without going into detail Cowin said, "Because Fred acted last Sunday, many lives were spared."
"A martyr is a person who is killed for his faith," Cowin said, adding that Winters "died the way he lived his life, in the midst of service to his King Jesus."
Cowin said a martyr is also someone whose death is a witness to the Christian faith.
Cowin said he does not know why God would allow his friend to die, but that already God was using the tragedy to "raise people to a higher level" of Christian witness.
Winters' widow, Cindy, said she met her future husband when she was 14. "We grew older together, but he never grew up," she said of the fun-loving pastor, husband and father.
She said Winters used to leave chocolate for her in her purse and at night would snuggle with her and ask how he could pray for her.
"He loved being a pastor," she told a packed sanctuary. "He had a pastor's heart. When you hurt, he hurt. When you were happy, he was happy."
"I never heard him once get sick of it," she said. "He loved you guys, and he would be proud of you."
She said Winters would be angry if people put too much attention on him. "The best way we can honor him is by honoring God," she said.
"Fred and I have been talking a lot about how God is on the verge of doing incredible things through this congregation," she said.
"Satan knew it, too, but nothing's changed."
"I refuse to let Satan win," she said. "He's not going to steal my joy. He's not going to steal my passion. I'm not going to hate, and I want to carry out the mission of this church."
"I'm not going to survive this thing," she said. "I'm going to become a better person because of this thing."
Fred Winters was born Dec. 4, 1963, in Kansas City, Mo., and felt the call to ministry while in high school. He and Cindy Lee Jackson were married in 1987. They have two daughters, Alysia, 13, and Cassidy, 11.
He graduated from Southwest Baptist University in 1985 and earned a master's degree from Wheaton Graduate School in 1987. He earned a master of divinity degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1991 and went on to receive a doctor of ministry degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Winters came to First Baptist Church in Maryville when the church consisted of just a few families. Today membership has grown to 1,400 and a weekly average of 1,200 people attend worship services. In 2007 Fred and Cindy Winters celebrated both 20 years of marriage and 20 years of service at First Baptist Church.
Adam Cruise, a former staff member at First Baptist Church in Maryville who now leads a church of his own, told mourners that his mentor would not want his death to result in discouragement or defeat. Rather he borrowed an illustration from a World War II story -- something that Winters often did -- to challenge the church to carry on its mission.
"Let the future generation of First Baptist Church, Maryville, look back on this generation and this moment and say this was our finest hour," he said.
Terry Sedlacek, the 27-year-old gunman charged with murder and aggravated battery in Winters' death, was released March 12 from the hospital where he was treated for self-inflicted stab wounds. When they searched his home in nearby Troy, Ill., police seized a planning calendar with March 8 marked "death day."
Cindy Winters read a message from her daughters at the memorial service saying "it was not death day for my daddy" but rather "the best day of his life."
"On Sunday my husband did not die," Winters said. "He just simply got a promotion."
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Gift of $2 million to fund chapel for new Central Seminary campus
By Robert Marus(409 words)
SHAWNEE, Kan. (ABP) -- Central Baptist Theological Seminary will be able to build a chapel on its new Shawnee, Kan., campus thanks to a $2 million gift from a prominent Baptist family foundation.
The John and Eula Mae Baugh Foundation of San Antonio pledged the money toward the seminary's $8 million "Cultivating Excellence" campaign, school officials announced March 12. The gift from the foundation -- which has provided support to several moderate and progressive Baptist organizations, including Associated Baptist Press -- brings total pledges in the campaign to $6.2 million.
It will fund Central's proposed Baugh-Marshall Chapel. The building's name follows Baugh Foundation practice in memorializing the charity's founders and honoring the president of the institution to which the building is donated, in this case Central President Molly Marshall.
"I am humbled by the generosity of the Baugh family," Marshall said, according to a school press release. "The prospect of having my name linked with theirs is a signal honor for me."
In a move designed to cut high maintenance costs, the 107-year-old seminary announced in 2006 that it would sell sell its historic campus in nearby Kansas City, Kan. It purchased and remodeled a former church facility in Kansas City's fast-growing southwestern suburbs, turning it into classroom, office and library space. The chapel will provide dedicated worship and meeting space on the Shawnee campus.
Other portions of the capital campaign include endowing faculty chairmanships, upgrading Central's library, providing housing for international students and visiting scholars and expanding the school's technological capabilities.
"With this pledge, every component of the campaign has received a pledge," said the seminary statement. "In the current financial climate it truly is an amazing gift and a wonderful affirmation of the mission of Central."
School officials indicated construction on the Baugh-Marshall Chapel would begin this summer or fall. Spokesperson Robin Sandbothe said March 16 that architectural renderings were not yet available for the building because "before this gift, we didn't know we'd get to begin building it so soon."
The seminary has, historically, been affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. While it remains so, Central describes itself as also being "in full support of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship." The school has hosted increasing numbers of students from moderate Southern Baptist backgrounds in recent years as fundamentalists solidified control at the official Southern Baptist divinity schools, including Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.
Central also includes students from approximately 20 other denominational backgrounds.
Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.
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