PICKERINGTON, Ohio — Knowing what we know, how in the world do we move forward?
Maybe the immediate focus shouldn’t be to move forward. C3 Church Pastor Konan Stephens says the first focus should be to process.
“The first thing they need to do is process their feelings,” he said. “Process what happened. I mean, for some of those kids, again, it’s probably the most traumatic time of their life. My kids went to that school, my nephew was in the cafeteria. You start having those conversations and you realize, yeah, there’s some trauma.”
Since the shooting at Ridgeview Junior High School, Stephens’ pastors have been getting calls.
“People have reached out to us and we want to be that kind of church,” Stephens said.
The kind of church that opens its doors.
Friday, C3 Church gave, to whoever needed it, a person to talk to, a room to grieve.
“Our heart is to walk with people, many times, through brokenness,” he said.
A moment, during brokenness to focus on healing and to eventually be able to move forward.
“There is good and there is hope and you see people step out of the woodworks, so to speak, to go ‘Man, I’m here to help [and] I want to be a part of the solution’,” Stephens said.