Gateway Church's Podcast
Lessons Learned In Crisis
So today, this is not going to be like a regular sermon. I want to share a testimony with you, a testimony of what God did and is doing in my life and in the life of our church as a result of a very tragic occurrence at New Life on December the 9th. So is that okay with you if I just share the testimony today? I ask for permission to do that today. But turning your Bible to James chapter 1 and also to John chapter 16, we are going to look at the Bible and look at some passages today in Scripture. But I want to share the story, the testimony of what God did, and as I said in our church on December the 9th. On December the 9th, as you recall, a gunman came on our campus killing two young girls, injuring three other people, and then took his own life in the hallway of our church. And a very tragic thing, a very devastating event at our church. The God is doing something. God, in the midst of that terrible crisis, I cannot imagine learning more about God than I have in the last five months. It's been the single greatest influence to me, toward God, of anything that's ever happened to me in my life. And so I want to look at James chapter 1, verse 2. It says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds." Now, I don't want to argue with God about how you wrote the Bible, but I think these three or four passages that I'm going to read should be written in opposite order. Because I don't think any of us when we have trials of many kind go, "Yay, joy, another trial of many kinds coming my way, so I should have joy." But it says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." Well, that's not even good news yet. The testing of your faith, that means it's going to happen for a long time, so just get used to it and persevere. Joy, yes. Verse 4, "Perseverance, though, must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gets generously to all without finding fault and he'll be given to him." Now, when I read this passage now, it means something different to me than I read than it was five months ago. It says, "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials." See, really what James was saying was, "After the trial is over, after you've persevered, you're going to become mature and complete, therefore joy will be in your life. A more abundant joy, a deeper reservoir for God's joy and power and peace because of the trials you're going to go through." Now, listen, I believe that we have bought into really bad theology in the American Church. And here's what this bad theology says, "Get saved, get rich, never get sick, and your life is a perpetual Disney experience." While nowhere in the New Testament is that really taught. In fact, the Bible does say God wants to bless us. God wants to prosper us. God wants to give us those things, but he never said that we would go without difficulty. He never said that we'd get through life unscared, unscathed. He said, "In fact, you will be brought before judges on my account. Some of you will be put in prison. Others will be put to death. Some of you are going to be persecuted. It's not really if you're going to go through hard time. It's when you go through hard times or know this. I've overcome the world." And so, John 1633 says, John 1633, Jesus, as he's getting closer to the cross, starts talking more directly to his disciples about the persecution, the trials, the difficulties that will come into their lives. And he says, "I've told you these things so that in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble." Does that sound like a professional Disney experience for you? But here's the good news. It says, "But take heart. I've overcome the world." And that's where the joy comes from. That's what James was talking about. James says, "Listen, you're going to have a hard time. In fact, you'll face trials of many kinds throughout your life, but through those process of going through trials, you're going to become a mature person, a complete person, a person that doesn't lack anything, including joy. Joy will be with you. My peace will be with you. My power will be with you. My presence will be with you, but you will have tough times." So this is the reality for me today. As I have tried to navigate me, my family, the church, and really our entire community has been looking to me to help them lead them through this tragic thing. We've had hundreds of pastors on our campus in the last five months trying to come to us for consulting about church security. Finally, I stood up in front of a big group of them and said, "Listen, I'm no expert in church security, but I am experienced." And so we've had a chance to really lead people through a process, and I've needed every ounce of God that I've ever had in my life in the last five months. In fact, honestly, today I'm standing here today. I'm really just squeezed out. I'm just needed for refreshing. I needed to come back here. I needed to get out of town for a couple of days. And so I'm just telling you the last couple of days that feel like God's kind of replenished me, just being with you and kind of getting out of the fray for a minute. And so here we are today, and I appreciate that from you. So let me tell you what happened on December the 9th. On December the 9th, and I haven't told this story, but only a couple of times in public, but on December the 9th, we had a guest speaker, some of you heard of him, Dr. Jack Capert. And I was thinking back, I called him a couple of months earlier and said, "Hey, when can you come speak for me?" He said, "Right, the only Sunday I can come is December the 9th." Now I look back on that, "What better guy to have at my side for four or five, six hours that afternoon than Dr. Jack Capert?" The Apostle Paul of our age, I think, you know. So he was there right beside me. He spoke at the nine o'clock service, the 11 o'clock service, and then I brought him up to my office for a lunch because we have an extension campus of King's College in seminary at the New Life campus, and we have a couple hundred students, so he was going to go down at one o'clock and greet all the students and meet some people that had once attended his church. So we brought him up to my office, we had a lunch, and we were sitting at my table myself. Dr. Hayford, Ross Parsley, the three of us sitting in my office, suddenly my assistant Carla broke through the door and said, "Pastor Brady, shots are being fired in the building." Now I grew up around guns, handguns, hunting, I'm a hunter, and I know what gunfire sounds like, and when she opened the door, my office is on the second floor, and below us, on the first floor, in a long corridor hallway, in our children's ministry, I heard what sounded like automatic gunfire, and it's not like Hollywood. It's more of a popping sound of pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And I could hear a rapid gunfire happening underneath in the hallway. Now listen, I didn't have a lot of terror-filled moments, but I did have one for about a minute because my wife Pam, many of you know her, is she's normally the last one to leave the building, because she's my wife, and she's always visiting, because people are talking to her, and so my first terrified thought was, "My wife and my kids are in that hallway," because this is where our children's ministry is located, all our children's ministry, this is where the gunman came in. And so, fortunately, God did something else, another miracle that God did is that instead of Pam going to the hallway to pick up the kids that morning, Pastor Jeff Jod, who was once at Gateway, and it's now my children's pastor at New Life, actually took Abraham and Callie and brought him into the sanctuary where Pam was. Instead of Pam going to pick him up, he just thought that day, he's never done it since and never did it before. He said, "I'll just take Abraham and Callie to Pam today just to save her a few steps." So, when I called speed dial, I was so relieved to hear Pam's voice, and she said, "Where are you?" She said, "I am at a red light." She had just left the campus. I mean, just two or three minutes earlier, and I said, "Don't come back. There's been shots fired on the campus. Go home. I'm going to send someone there to be with you." And for the next 45 minutes, we were in my office, kind of, in my office, locked down, because that's why our security team said, "Stay here. Lock the door. I'm going to go find out what's happening, but don't leave the office. Just stay right here. The police will come. Don't open the door except for myself or a police officer." So, we were standing there, and my office is on the second floor, so I could see out several windows in my office, and I'm watching people just flee for their lives, running out the building, going everywhere, scrambling, ducking for cover, crying, and then in a few minutes, within three minutes, really. Our whole parking lot was filled with police, DEA, FBI, ambulance, medical crews were just all over the place, lights flashing, and so we started getting reports on my cell phone. He's saying, "Brady, we have two minor injuries. We have a man with an arm injury, a lady with a minor shoulder injury, and the gunman has been subdued." And I thought, "Wow, what a miracle. What an unbelievable miracle that if a gunman came on our campus, we have two minor injuries, and the gunman's already subdued, and I was relieved." In fact, we were praying for protection and for everybody to be protected, and it just felt so grateful that that did what happened. So, about 45 minutes later, the police come. The SWAT team is sweeping through. We have about a 300,000 square foot facility, so they went room by room sweeping the building and ushering all of us out of the main building and walking and taking us over to an adjacent building. So, one of the memories that I will always have is walking out of my church with my hands in the air, a SWAT guy escorting me, and I'm walking behind Dr. Hayford. He has his hands in the air, and I'm wondering if he'll ever come back and be a guest speaker again. He is coming back by the way. So, we're all walking out of the building with our hands in the air. We go into an adjacent building, and there's about 300 people there that the police have gathered into that location, and they're beginning to question, you know, did you see the shooter, and they have to question every one of us. They take a statement from all of us, and it took us several hours for that to happen, but when I walked into the building, there in the middle of the room was a lady sitting in a chair, obviously in shock, stunned, just covered the front of her covered blood, our hands blood, and I realized at that point, I haven't been told everything. I walked over to her and I said, "What happened?" And she couldn't talk, so her daughter said, "Both my sisters were shot, my dad's been shot, and the ambulance has taken them away." So, all 300 of us gathered around them, and we just prayed, and I remember the powerful presence of God there as we prayed, and I just sat there beside her for a moment, trying to comfort her, and she had a lot of family and friends there, so I walked away. I walked away, and when I was walking away, a man in our church who was a doctor said, "Brady, I need to talk to you. Pull me aside." And he said, "Brady, I saw I was there giving care to the two young girls and the dad." He said, "The two girls are not going to live." He said, "In fact, the oldest of the girls died instantly." She had a sticker shot right into the aorta. She died within a minute or two. Her sister, 16-year-old Rachel, took several shots in the thorax and died on the way to the hospital. The dad took several wounds in the abdomen, but survived. And I'm standing there looking, "Guys, I mean, I'm a pastor. My heart just left me." And I realized, "My goodness, what happened?" And I said, "Lord, I need you. If any of you lack wisdom, ask me. You know why that passage is attached to the place where it says trials of many kinds? Because that's when you need wisdom. When your whole world crashes, that's when you need God." And I remember Dr. Hayford coming over to me and he put his hands, and he's a big guy, you know, a real tall guy, and he put his hands on my shoulders, and he went, "Brady, God's grace is going to be with you, and you're not going to make a bad decision for 10 days." I said, "Could you extend that a little longer?" Now, that was a prophetic statement, and I don't know if you believe in prophecy, but I do. I believe in God's speaking things to us and clarifying the future for us at times. And what Dr. Hayford did not know is that from the time of the shooting, until the time we did the memorial service for the two girls who died, it was 10 days. It was a 10-day span of time between the shooting when we could actually do the memorial service because the memorial couldn't do the memorial service to the dad who could get out of the hospital to attend. So it was 10 days later before we had the funeral, the grave side, and the memorial service. And in that 10-day span of time, I felt this unbelievable grace and calm and wisdom that I've never experienced, and I had to make a lot of critical decisions. I mean, within moments of the shooting, I had to make several real critical decisions. And when he prayed over him, Dr. Hayford, when he said that to me, just prayed over me. And suddenly, my mind cleared up, my heart cleared up, and I could see and think clearly for 10 days, and on the 11th day, I just crashed. I learned a couple of things, still learning some things that I want to share with you today. Is it okay? Now, there was a lot of miracles that happened. And I've told you a couple of them already, and this was a tragic thing that happened, but there were a lot of miracles. The fact that the gunman, 24-year-old Matthew Murray, only got into our building 60 feet, he got 60 feet into the hallway before he was stopped. He came into our building with a thousand rounds of ammunition strapped to his chest, two pistols, and an AR-15 assault rifle that he had bought over the counter and converted it to an automatic weapon. And he came into our building with the intention of harming a lot of people, and we had hundreds of people on our campus when he came. And a very heroic security guard, she's about five foot tall, and was in that hallway. Now, when she stopped him, she shot him four times to stop him. And I don't know how many of you have any handgun experience, but when you shoot a handgun, most people are not accurate past 10 to 15 feet. After about 10 to 15 feet, most people can't hit anything with a 9-millimeter handgun. In fact, when you get training, the target's 15 feet away normally. She shot him at 82 feet with automatic gunfire being returned to her. And the place where she was standing, where she had to shoot, behind her, the whole wall was riddled with bullets. We have no idea how she wasn't hit. Well, we do have an idea. I mean, but in the natural, in the natural, you would have no idea how does she not get hit? Because the whole wall behind her was filled with bullet holes where he was shooting at her, and then she was able to calmly look and fire and stop him. 60 feet inside our building. And she saved hundreds of lives, and I'm grateful for her, a real miracle that happened. And God be the glory. So let me tell you a couple of things I learned. Number one is that a crisis will reveal your core beliefs. In a crisis, who you really are comes to the surface. Your core beliefs, the core values that you live your life by will be revealed in a crisis. You can't hide at that point. The facade, any Christian mass that you may be wearing will come off in a time of a crisis. And you probably have noticed this with families that have gone through trauma or crisis, a family like someone that has a sudden loss or a tragic loss in their family. One or two things normally happens when a family goes through that. They either really bond together and become stronger than ever before, or the family implodes. Have you ever seen that? A family just break up after a tragedy. Our family comes together really strong during a tragedy. And the reason that happens is because before the tragedy, the family had made some commitments to one another. Before a crisis, before a crisis, if you're committed to one another, to live your life as a family or as in a marriage, you're already committed to your covenant of marriage. When a crisis comes against your marriage, it only solidifies the covenant that you already agreed upon. But if you're already waffling and negotiating away that relationship, when a crisis comes, it will implode your relationship. So you have to decide up front. You have to decide before the crisis what you're really committed to doing. And this is something that happened to me before I went to New Life. Pastor Tom encouraged me to write down my core values because I was really going through a bit of a midlife crisis. I was turning 40. I just lost my dad. And I knew that I was leaving Gateway, a place that I really love, still love. And I knew those things were all happening in one neat little package. And it was time for me to know what does Brady Boyd really believe? What are my non-negotiable values? What are the things that I will not negotiate away? And so I wrote them down. I mean, it took me three months to really pray and write down some things. And what is it that I'm passionate about? What are my values? What are the things that I really believe to be true about myself and about God? Listen, if you haven't done this and you need to write it down, you need to talk about what you really believe. One of the things that you're not willing to negotiate, because listen, if you ever get into a negotiation with the enemy, you will lose. And I don't care how crafty or savvy or a good negotiator you think you are, you've met your match when you negotiate with the enemy. He's mastered the siever negotiator. And so you have to decide up front, this is what I really believe. These are the things that I really value in my life. These are the things that I will not negotiate, because in a crisis, those things will be tested. And I remember that afternoon of the shooting, I realized, I mean, there's going to be media everywhere. Our church is a real high-profile church in the country, and we've just gone through a scandal 13 months earlier. And so we were on the front page of every paper. We can't do anything there. We had our first presbytery two weeks ago, it was on the front page of the Denver Post that we were having a presbytery. And we were just real high-profile. So I knew that I was going to have to address the media that afternoon. Many of you saw those initial interviews that I had to do, and people asked, "Hey, what did you think about what you were going to say?" and went, "No." I was in shock. I'm stunned. I'm still trying to process what just happened. Now, I wasn't prepared for address the media that day. In fact, if you saw those first interviews, that big black jacket I had on one of even mine. It was our attorneys. I was even prepared. It was cold outside, and I'd forgotten my jacket that day. And so I had to borrow the attorney's jacket. I thought I'd keep it. Anyway, I gave it back, but I wanted to keep it. So when I walked up there, there's CNN, Fox, every major news network in the world on our campus, probably 100 or so media, live trucks, helicopters with cameras. I mean, it was a total media frenzy outside, and I had to walk up the hill and stand in front of about 100 reporters and answer questions and give a statement and lead our church. And at that moment, I can't figure out who I am at that moment. I got to know who I am. I can't just try to come up with something. Who I am came out, who I really was, the core of my person is going to come out in a crisis. It'll come out in your crisis, too. How you respond to crisis will reveal your real self. My grandmother has, she's gone to heaven now, but years and years ago, I remember her always telling me, "Brady, you want to know how full someone's glass is? Just shake it." That's how you know what's in there is when your life gets shaken, the water is shaken. You want to know how full your glass is, wait till your glass gets shaken. My glass got shaken on December 9th, and I'm grateful there was some water in it. But I had to put the water in it before the crisis. And I want you to remember what I'm about to say because really, this is something that I believe to be true. Faith that's never tested can't be trusted. Faith that's not tested can't really be trusted. That's why I said in James chapter 1, the testing of your faith. Testing of your faith builds perseverance. And when perseverance is finished, you'll have maturity and completeness. But listen, if your faith's not been tested, it can't be trusted. Leadership that's not been tested can't be trusted. Nothing that's not been tested can be trusted. That's why when you build a house, you have inspectors come and they test it. They test the foundation. They test the plumbing. They go through a series of tests so that when you move into the house, you can trust it. It's no different with us. If your faith's never been tested, you can't trust your faith. Mine's been tested. I can trust it now. It wasn't the first time it had been tested, but it was probably the most severe time it had been tested. And I have a different trust now. I know who I am. I trust God more than I've ever trusted him. I believe God more than I've ever believed him. I'm confident in God's ability more than I've ever been confident. And I thought I was fairly confident, but I'm more confident today than ever. Because I know God comes true in tough tough times. Psalms 18 verse 31, it says, "For who is God except the Lord and who is a rock except our God? It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer and sets me on my high places." God spoke to me after the shooting and gave me that scripture and he said, "Brady, I never promised that the path would be without rocks or without treachery. I did promise you to give you the feet of a deer, though." He said, "It doesn't mean that your path is always going to be wide and pleasant, easy to walk on, although there will be times when it does feel that way." He said, "But when I put you on treacherous places, when I make you walk through difficult, dangerous places, know this. I've given you the feet of a deer. You're going to be okay." Crisis will reveal whether or not you have the feet of a deer or not. Crisis will reveal your platform, your foundation. And the second thing is that crisis will reveal God to the world. Crisis is an opportunity to reveal God to the world. Please know this if there are two times, by the way, people are always watching you. We're always being watched. But there are two times when a lot of people are watching you. Two times when you're really successful and when you're going through a hard time. That's when the most set of eyes are on you. When you're very successful, when you're when you're experiencing a lot of success, are when you're going through a crisis. And crisis is an opportunity to reveal God to the world. This is what dawned on me when I'm, I was on Larry King Live, I was on Greta, I was on ABC Good Morning America, I was on NBC, ABC, CNN. I was interviewed by every major newspaper in the country, the New York Times, the LA Times, the all of them. It's really overrated, by the way. And I remembered, I was getting all these opportunities, but to the secular media, to tell this story. And it dawned on me, "Lord, you just gave me a platform to breach the gospel, didn't you?" I mean, I'm telling you, it's been so much fun to sit there and answer the question. I mean, Larry King asked me, he said, "Brady, and I told him to call me Bishop Boyd, but he, you know, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't think it was that funny either, I was just joking with him." So, and I, and I was really tired when he interviewed me too, and I was just ready to get in. Anyway, so I told him, I said, he said, "Pastor Boyd, does this shake your faith?" I said, "No, it only confirms that what I believed is true." And I got to say that over and over again, because that was the question I got asked most often by the secular media was, "Hey, does this shake your faith? Does this disqualify what you believe?" And went, "No, it only proves that what I believe really is true." And I got to explain why and go into great detail on live television, unedited live television, to the lost world, telling the good news, because I knew the eyes of people were on me in a difficult time and crisis is a unique opportunity to share the good news. It's a unique opportunity for yourself. And Psalms 31, it says, "This is a passage the Lord took me to in the middle of all this media frenzy that I was walking through." It said, "You've done so much for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world." That's the second part, that's a new living translation if you have that translation. I realized, Lord, I was praying for protection. Lord, we needed protection. We were in danger. We had bullets fired at us. Lord, protect us. And Lord, bless us before the watching world. So what's happening in new life right now is an absolute miracle. The church is growing. We've had it people. People are getting saved. People are getting baptized. We baptized 100 people last week. I mean, people are just erratically just changing their lives. It's a really, really good thing. It comes to miracle. I wish I could say because I'm cute or smart, but I knew those things are that true. It's because God did something among us. God's doing something among us. So after the shooting, we had Christmas. And then I was really gone. I mean, I just was tired. So I got away for several days and went to a place up in Southwest Arkansas to a ranch. 7,000 acre ranch. There's about four human beings there, 7,000 acres. So it's a great place to get solitude. So I spent some time there just trying to hear God, trying to get my soul back, trying to get some rest. And when I was there, the Lord really spoke to me about contacting Ron and Loretta Murray, the parents of the shooter. So when I got back into town, I called Ron and Loretta Murray and I said, "Hey, I'm so sorry." And I know many times when a family has a tragic death, that one of the ways you can bring closure and healing is to go to the place where the tragedy occurred. And you see those little markers on the side of the road a lot of times that are memorials where people died. And it's a family probably put that there as a reminder, as a place where they could bring some closure to the tragedy. So I asked the Murray family, "Would you like to come to the campus?" Let me show you in chronological order where everything happened. They said, "We're so grateful. Yes, we would." I said, "Well, you're here. Would you like to meet David and Marie works?" The parents who lost the two teenage girls, they said, "Yes, we would." "Would you like to meet Genesom, the security guard?" "Yes, we would." So one morning, I said, "No media. I'm not going to let the media know about this meeting." So they came privately, and I showed him where their son parked the car, where he opened fire on the work family, where the doors that he came through, and where he died in our hallway. And of course, when we showed him a place where their son died, they wept and cried, and we put our arms around them and prayed for them, and had it was a real tender moment. Now, I took him up to my office, and what happened to my office was the highlight of my pastoral career. I've never, ever experienced the true love of God, the forgiveness of Christ, the way I experienced it that day. Here's Ron and Loretta Murray, whose son was the shooter, embracing David and Marie works, whose two daughters were killed. And the four of them just sat and was just stood in the middle of my office for 20 minutes crying, repenting, weeping, embracing one another. And I remember Ron Murray saying to the works family, "Please forgive us. I'm so sorry for what my son did." And I saw the works family saying, "We're so sorry you lost your son. We're so sorry for what happened." And these four people, just embracing one another for a couple hours, we sat in my office and just talked. And then Gina Somme came in, and Ron Murray said, "Gene, I'm so sorry, my son opened fire at you, and I want you to know you did the right thing." And I heard Gene say, "I'm so sorry for having to do what I did. I'm so sorry for your loss." You see, who you really are comes out in those times, and it's a chance to make Jesus really famous on the earth. It's a chance to really shine the light that we have inside of us, to share the good news that we should be sharing. I was watching a movie, I've got a sneak preview of this documentary that's coming out. And in this documentary, Ben Stein is interviewing this atheist, this well-known atheist. He's the most famous atheist on the planet. He's written books that has sold millions of copies denouncing God. And so Ben Stein asked him a great question. He said, "Hey, I'm going to ask you a hypothetical question. Let's assume that you're wrong, that there is a God, and after you die, you run into him." What kind of question would you have for God if you happen to run into him after you die?" And the atheist said, "Listen, I don't believe in God after I die. My existence is over." He said, "I'm just asking a hypothetical question. What if you're wrong? What is it that? What are you going to ask him if you're wrong? You do run into God." And the guy said, "I know exactly what I'd ask him. Why are you so hard to find?" Let me tell you why God's hard to find for some people. You know that God has a job description. And here's his job description. God's job description is to spread his glory throughout the earth. And he only has one plan for that to happen. You and I. And the reason God's hard to find is because he's hard to find in us. It's not that God's hiding. That's why Jesus said, "Don't put your light under a bushel and keep it hidden. Be salt. Be light." You're my only plan. This is what Jesus was saying. Listen, you're the only hope I have to fulfill my job description is if you let me be me and you. That's why in the new covenant age, we're now the temple of the Holy Spirit. We're the temple. I don't dwell in temple made by man's hands. I now dwell in the temple of men and women. In fact, I think almost all manifestations of the Holy Spirit happen through us. That's our job description is to let God be God in us. So, I want to ask you a question today. I have two questions for you. There's two questions I'm asking myself. So, I'm not asking you a question. I'm not asking myself too. What do I really believe? What is it that's not negotiable? And is it easy for people to find God when they're around me? Listen, I'm not talking about being churchier religious. In fact, that's the worst thing you could probably do. I'm talking about being yourself, being authentic, really letting God speak through you and maybe talking more like God than you ever did and thinking more thoughts like God, behaving like Jesus, kind, compassionate, considerate, not mean, angry and judgmental, but kind, considerate, gracious. Do they see God in your life? If that atheist were to hang around you for a couple of days, would it be hard to find God? I'd like to hang out with him for two or three days. Let him find God. It would be easy to find God, I think. Can I pray for you this morning?