This Sunday marks ten years since terrorists hijacked planes and attacked the United States.
People were searching for answers to questions few had contemplated. Many people sought comfort in their church.
Father Christopher Davis with Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church In Greensboro, N.C., said after the 9/11 attacks, he struggled with his faith.
“My first reaction was a knee jerk reaction of lets kill everyone and I sort of thought how can I be a minister of the gospel, how can I preach love and peace and have this strong feeling of anger and hatred in my own heart and to come to grips with that,” said Davis.
Father Davis’s message this Sunday will be one of forgiveness.
“The gospel for that Sunday is how many times must I forgive seven times seven times and our Lord says no, seventy times seven times. We can’t put a limit on God’s grace no matter what people have done or what people have said, we still love and we try to love perfectly,” said Davis.
Pastor Jerome Lee Jr., of St. James Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C. is planning on preaching out of Nehemiah chapter four. He said he will revisit the destruction of 9/11 to offer hope in his community.
“Families on drugs, the economy layoffs foreclosures, some of that has happened to people here and taken them to ground zero, so the question that I’m going to raise to them is where do we go from here? We must access like Nehemiah did and go back to where that rubble is and we will find that we can rebuild and we just need to trust God to do that,” said Lee.
In Stokes County, music will help provide comfort at King Moravian Church. The choir is preparing a special requiem to honor victims of the attack.
“Music usually takes us to a place that words sometimes cannot. Just the sounds and mood of a place can inspire emotions to come forth that don’t always come forth just from the spoken word,” said Drake Flint, the music director at King Moravian Church.
Shirley Abdullah of Green Street United Methodist Church said she has seen positive changes in her congregation since 9/11.
“One thing about 9/11 that I found is that it brought so many people together into some understandings you know people are afraid a lot of times of something different and so that started dialogue, it started people talking. People will come together, people will pray together, people will worship together, they will remember together and the unity from that is bound to go out and spread across the community and the world is my hope,” said Abdullah.
Area clergy, including the pastor from Green Street United Methodist Church will join the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem for a public service.
“We want to emphasize the importance of tolerance and acceptance and cooperation. Educating the community, not just about the core beliefs of Islam but to actually meet people of varying faith traditions who come together for the same purpose to develop a better tomorrow for ourselves and our families, said Imam Khalid Griggs, mosque leader and associate Chaplain for Muslim Life at Wake Forest University.
The public service at the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem begins at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.