We join in mourning with our brothers and sisters from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., as well as the greater AME family around the world. Our hearts are broken over the tragic loss of nine brothers and sisters in Christ on Wednesday night.

We earnestly pray that the Lord of all comfort and peace will be powerfully present in your lives in this time of grief and loss.

This senseless violence reminds us how much this world needs the love of Jesus Christ, and we therefore pray for the perpetrator who was so obviously under the control of the evil one.