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04/20/93
Waco clergyman organizes `service of prayer and lament'
By Nancy Kruh / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-By 2 p.m. Monday, with the Branch Davidian compound still smoldering, the Rev. George Holland had already decided Waco needed some way to express its spiritual anguish over the sudden, violent end to David Koresh's strange ministry.
"An awful lot of people in town are hurting,' the Presbyterian minister said Monday night. "It's important for people to express those hurts and griefs.'
And so, with the help of the ecumenical Waco Ministerial Alliance, Mr. Holland began to plan a "service of prayer and lament,' to be held Tuesday at his Central Presbyterian Church.
At 12:15 p.m., representatives from the Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant faiths will come together for what is expected to be a half-hour service of Scripture, prayer and comfort.
Mr. Holland said his church sanctuary seats only about 250 people and he said he had no idea whether "we'll have a few people or hordes (to attend).'
But the numbers won't matter, said the Rev. Dan Bagby of the Seventh & James Baptist Church. "I think people want to know that someone is responding to it,' said the Southern Baptist minister, who's a member of the ministerial alliance.
"There's a lot of sentiment in Waco that it's not our religious trouble, yet it happened at our back door,' Mr. Bagby said. "There's a sense of sadness I feel as I walk around town.'
Already, he said, several members of the alliance-a group that represents more than 50 congregations in Waco-are planning to observe a moment of silence during their weekend services in honor of those who died at the compound and the survivors they left behind.
"I think everyone was shaken by what happened,' said Barry Click, a pastoral counselor and president of the ministerial alliance. "No one thought it would end in flames. Even more so, no one wanted it to end that way.'
Mr. Click said he senses that many Waco residents seek spiritual guidance to help them come to terms with what has happened in their midst.
"Of course, it causes us to think about the nature of our own faith and religion,' Mr. Click said. "The town has been under unbelievable scrutiny, both nationally and internationally. It's been a painful process. We don't want to be defined by this one incident. We don't want to be reduced to this one tragedy.'
Besides prayers, readings and organ music, the Tuesday service will also include a special reflection in memory of the children who died in the compound's inferno. Mr. Holland asked Jo Pendleton, local director of Habitat for Humanity, to write this "mothers' lament.'
"I think the children are uppermost in our minds,' said Mr.
Holland. "It's just incomprehensible that that guy could have let the children die.'
Mr. Holland said he hoped worshipers would be able to express their grief openly at the service Tuesday. He hoped they would feel comfortable enough to cry.
"People need to have a place to do that with dignity and respect,' he said. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. I felt like crying today.'
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