Minister reflects on shooting that shattered his congregation’s peace
Minister Britt Farmer, left, receives encouragement from church member Hugh Galyean on Monday. Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.
WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas — Britt Farmer had his head down, focusing on the sermon he was about to preach.
That’s when the 60-year-old minister heard a gasp, followed by gunshots and screaming at the West Freeway Church of Christ.
“I dove down between the pews, which is what we told everyone to do,” Farmer recalled, telling his story from the same second-row pew where he witnessed Sunday’s deadly attack.
In the past few years, the close-knit congregation west of Fort Worth had beefed up its security team and trained members for a real-life nightmare such as this.
“We need to do something,” West Freeway member Jack Wilson had said after a Nov. 5, 2017, massacre at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, that claimed more than two dozen lives.
Now, on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s Day, a gunman had opened fire at the back of the West Freeway auditorium, shattering the peace of the congregation’s weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper.
Normally, Farmer would have been sitting further back with his wife, Lisa. She doesn’t like it so close to the front. But she was out of town Sunday, celebrating the 41st birthday of their daughter, Lori Squieres.
(Later, Farmer would lament that he forgot to wish Squieres a happy birthday when she, her three adult brothers and their mother all rushed from various parts of the Lone Star State to be at the minister’s side.)
The West Freeway church is a pistol-packing congregation that believes in protecting its flock — there were more than 200 men, women and children in the pews on this Lord’s Day — from threats.
“I carry all the time, unless I’m in the pulpit or teaching,” said Farmer, who worked in the lumber business before going into ministry.
Since he was about to step to the pulpit, he didn’t have a gun as he dropped to the ground.
But the woman crouched down behind him did. She’s a member of the church security team.
“Do you have your gun?” she asked Farmer, the West Freeway church’s preacher for eight years.
“No,” he said.
“Here,” she replied, handing him hers.
Six seconds — an eternity
The gunfire itself lasted just six seconds.
Two quick shotgun blasts claimed the lives of two beloved Christians: Richard White, 67, and Anton “Tony” Wallace, 64.
Almost immediately, Wilson — the church security team leader, who is a former reserve sheriff’s deputy and a firearms instructor — returned fire.
Wilson’s single shot struck the gunman, Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, who fell to the ground by a side wall.
The gunman had slipped into the service wearing a long black wig, a fake beard and a bulky jacket, witnesses said.
Across the auditorium, Farmer didn’t immediately realize that White, his best friend, was one of the victims.
The minister’s first instinct was to go check on the wounded, but he wasn’t certain the threat was over.
What if the shooter were still alive?
“Where’s his gun? Where’s his gun?” Farmer, who was connected to a wireless microphone, said he screamed.
A half-dozen or more armed members drew their weapons and approached the shooter in the attack’s aftermath.
Only later, after seeing a photo of Kinnunen without his disguised appearance, did the minister recognize him as someone the church had fed several times.
“He gets mad when he won’t give him cash,” Farmer said, standing near the spot where the shooting occurred. “He’s been here on multiple occasions.”
Police arrived within two minutes. But to Farmer, it felt like an eternity.
“My hands were hurting,” he said.
He was gripping the gun so hard.
“I’ll be honest: I kept holding the gun that I was given, and I kept scouring the audience not knowing if there was a second shooter,” he said.
Tending to the flock
In the minutes after the shooting, Farmer and the church’s elders worked to help members evacuate the auditorium. Most of the congregation gathered in the fellowship hall next door.
“I’m going to tell you something: They weren’t out here working with law enforcement, trying to take care of the building and stuff,” Farmer said of the elders. “They were in that room with all of the members — comforting, praying, loving those people. They left that other stuff to people who could do it.”
Elder John Robertson said: “Our job was to take care of the flock. We had several going, ‘I’m scared,’ crawling under the table and stuff like that. We said, ‘I understand, but you’re safe now.’”
Farmer doesn’t know how much time passed — several minutes probably — before the woman who gave him her gun approached and asked if he was OK.
“Do you want me to take that?” she said.
“Take what?” he responded.
“My weapon.”
“Oh.”
He had forgotten about the gun he was clutching.
Even though two members lost their lives, Farmer — like law enforcement authorities who have praised the church security team’s response — has no doubt the death toll could have been higher.
Much higher.
“They have said that this is going to be a model church, that this situation will save lives in other places,” Farmer said, quoting Texas public safety officials.
He takes solace in that.
“Britt’s poise and calmness have helped his church to face a most trying situation,” said Jim Hackney, a fellow Texas preacher who has known him for more than 40 years. “I could not be more proud of him and pray God continues to use him powerfully in the days ahead.”
Shock and healing
Roughly 30 hours after the shooting, Farmer addressed his congregation at a special, members-only prayer service Monday night.
He had no answers for why the tragedy happened — except that evil exists in the world — but he thanked his physical family and his church family for the support they have shown him.
“You are incredible, and I love you, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart,” he said before the church sang “Amazing Grace,” “Precious Memories” and “It Is Well With My Soul.”
But for Farmer and his grieving congregation, healing will take time — a lot of time.
His faith sustains him, he said, but he knows the journey ahead won’t be easy.
“I am in shock,” he said. “I will be for months. It’s going to be hard.”
This story was originally posted at The Christian Chronicle, where Bobby Ross Jr. is editor-in-chief.
Earlier in this Collection
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A gunman opened fire during the Lord’s Supper at a Church of Christ in Texas Dec. 29, killing two worshipers. Armed members immediately returned fire and killed the shooter at the West Freeway Church of Christ in the Fort Worth suburb of White Settlement.
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The congregation of West Freeway Church of Christ, about 280 people, came together a day after a gunman killed two of their flock and an armed member fatally shot him.
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