Quinn Chapel feels love of area residents

Sister Chris Franklin, wearing dark green at left, leads a prayer with members of Quinn Chapel AME Church and members of the public who showed up at the church Sunday morning to show support  after nine members of another AME church were slain Thursday in Charleson, S.C.
Sister Chris Franklin, wearing dark green at left, leads a prayer with members of Quinn Chapel AME Church and members of the public who showed up at the church Sunday morning to show support after nine members of another AME church were slain Thursday in Charleson, S.C.

More than two dozen area residents showed up before Quinn Chapel AME's Sunday morning church service to show their support for the church in the wake of nine killings at an AME church in Charleston, S.C.

The community members, organized just two days before on Facebook by Centertown resident Gina Newlon, brought flowers and cookies and greeted church members as they entered. The church and community members prayed together outside the church sanctuary before the church service.

Newlon said she wanted to do something to bring the community together, and to show solidarity with the church after the tragedy.

"Just letting everybody know that from this church and beyond, and all the community, we're all feeling it," she said. "Just standing in solidarity and opening up our hearts a little bit, because I'm just kind of sick of the news making it seem like people don't care and we're lost in our own worlds, when we do. We do care."

She said her effort is small, but she looks at it as planting a seed.

"Hate cannot drive out hate," she said. "Only love can drive out hate."

She said the county has a "gaping wound" because of racism, and that part of the problem is that nobody wants to talk about the issue.

Events to bring communities together should occur more often, she said.

Outside the church, Newlon and more than two dozen other area residents stood with flowers and heart-shaped signs reading "Charleston, S.C." The group greeted members of the church as they entered.

Kim Woodruff, a minister at the church, shook Newlon's hand outside, thanking her for organizing the "outpouring of support" as well as their prayers. "It means a lot. It means a lot," she told Newlon.

Some of the community members stayed for the 11 a.m. church service, which was dedicated to the victims of Thursday's slaying.

On Thursday, a white man who had joined a prayer meeting inside the historically black church in Charleston, S.C., fatally shot nine members of the church. The suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, was later captured without incident.

At the start of Sunday's service at Quinn Chapel AME, Pastor Cassandra Gould referenced the tragedy, but said it wouldn't prevent them from worshipping.

"The good news is the doors of the church will always be open," she said.

Afterward, she said the church was "overwhelmed by the love that the people of Jefferson City have shown."

The local group Faith Voices will host an event at Quinn Chapel at 6:30 p.m. today for a continuing conversation on race relations. The public is invited.