SALON

Monday, Jan 21, 2013 1:30 AM UTC

Minister: Newtown church service to ‘mend hearts’

By

Topics: From the Wires,

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A minister at a worship service honoring the victims of last month’s deadly Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting says the town has a long journey ahead and destiny lies in residents’ ability to be united.

The Rev. Matt Crebbin is the senior minister of the Newtown Congregational Church, where about 300 people gathered Sunday night. He says the gathering serves “to heal and mend hearts” broken when a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14.

The church service also honored the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

A former leader of one of the country’s most prominent liberal Protestant churches planned to speak at the service. The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. was the first black minister to lead New York’s historic Riverside Church and retired in 2007.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., who led one of the country’s most prominent liberal Protestant churches, planned to speak in Newtown at a worship service Sunday night honoring the victims of last month’s school shooting and the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Forbes was scheduled to deliver a sermon at 7:30 p.m. at Newtown Congregational Church.

His talk comes a day before the federal holiday in honor of King, and a little more than a month after a gunman shot to death 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S history.

“It is fitting, on this weekend, when our nation honors the service and sacrifice of Dr. King, that we gather in worship to honor the service and sacrifice of the persons who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy,” said the Rev. Matt Crebbin, senior pastor at Newtown Congregational Church.

Forbes hopes to offer words of hope and healing, reminding people that the body knows how to grieve, he said in an interview Thursday. He said he will also talk about the power of community and faith.

“We live in individualized cubicles, but we also discover that in times of crisis, community is an indispensable element for healing,” Forbes said. “It’s amazing how naturally in times of crisis we pull together.”

Forbes’ will call for a transformation of communities, echoing King’s call for transformation in the wake of extreme violence during the civil rights movement 50 years ago.

“And it could be that Newtown may in some curious and mysterious way open up the possibility of a new America when it comes to the issue of violence and how we handle it,” Forbes said.

Forbes is senior minister emeritus of historic Riverside Church in New York City. He was the first black minister to lead the church. He retired from there in 2007.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
226 points227 points | 13 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
200 points201 points | 30 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
202 points203 points | 147 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
78 points79 points | 16 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
43 points44 points | 8 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations