First United Methodist pastor, David Luckert, and wife Cathy, lead a prayer for the staff of First Methodist Day School during a joint prayer service held Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2024, to support the congregation, following a Monday morning fire that claimed the church's sanctuary. (Robin Y. Richardson/Marshall News Messenger)

MARSHALL — Hope remained high for the congregation of First Methodist Church on Wednesday night as leaders and members gathered at a joint prayer service at Summit Methodist Church following a Monday morning fire that claimed the church’s historic sanctuary.

“As I said, sometimes we don’t know what to say,” First Methodist Lead Pastor David Luckert said as he opened the service.

“There’s two things I’ve learned through the years I’m not going to say about what happened at the church. The first one is this, ‘God did this.’ The second one is this: ‘God did not do this,’ because God is more mysterious and awesome than any of us here tonight,” said Luckert. “He lives, exists beyond my understanding and your comprehension, so I’ve learned through the years, let’s not even go that route; let’s not go that trail.”

“A lot of people have been asking me: ‘Do they know the cause of the fire yet?’ And they don’t,” said Luckert. However, “That’s not my focus, and I don’t want that to be our focus.

“I want our focus to be on what God is going to bring out of the catastrophes of life. And I also don’t’ want this to be focused on First Methodist Church,” the pastor said. “I think all of us need to be praying for something special to happen at God’s hand in our community and if this is what he can use then… God do that… And so tonight, I’m going to provide some leadership in walking you through some important prayers that we need to offer up. It’s going to be a season of prayers this evening.”

Reflecting on the sight he saw around 3 a.m. Monday as he arrived at the corner of East Houston and Lafayette Streets, the pastor recalled watching his home church burn in horror and dismay.

“It’s just one of those, you keep thinking at any time now it’s going to be under control, it’s going to go out,” he said. “You keep thinking that and thinking that, and it just keeps getting worse and worse.”

One thing remains, as the theme of the entire service highlighted: God remains in control as the church journeys through its crisis recovery mode.

“That’s where we find ourselves frequently in life and like tonight, sometimes, we don’t always know what to say, but we know we’re supposed to be here. And I’m deeply appreciative to Darryl Roberts, the pastor of this church and congregation,” said Luckert. “When I called and asked if we could do this here, he didn’t even hesitate. He said please come and called our good friend Milton Rodgers at St. Mark’s and he said I will be there. I know some of you represent those congregations as well, as well as our congregation. We have people from other congregations that are here tonight. We have a lot of our day school teachers that are here tonight as well. They’ve been walking through this with us too. It’s a process for them, so we appreciate everybody who has been here tonight.”

The First Methodist pastor invited all to recognize the presence of the Lord there tonight as they kicked off the prayer service with the inspirational singing of “Spirit of the Living God, Fall Fresh on Me.”

The prayer service included encouraging scripture reading such as 2 Chronicles Chapters 6 and 7.

“2 Chronicles 6 is a celebratory time. They had just finished building their first temple and Solomon is leading them in worship and thanksgiving. And Solomon offers up prayers, and when you get into Chapter 7, God being God actually starts talking back to Solomon and he talks about how having heard his prayers,” Luckert explained. “But it’s if God knows as some point in the future catastrophe is going to hit and when it does, this is what I want you to do, God says. And these are still words (that apply) for us today.”

Pastor Luckert also shared one of his favorite passages Philippians 4, which reminds readers to “Rejoice in the Lord always… The Lord is near; do not be anxious about anything…”

Summit’s pastor, Darryl Roberts, prayed a prayer of provision and reminded that Christ was interceding on their behalf.

“In prayer, these words came to my mind Romans 8:26-27. In the same way, the spirit deals with us in our weakness, we do not know what we ought to pray for but the spirit itself intercedes for us through wordless groans and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God,” the pastor quoted.

“Friends, as David is reminding each and every one of us, this is a remarkable gathering of people lifting up their thoughts and prayers to God, but what is more remarkable is even sometimes when we are overwhelmed and don’t know how to pray or what to say, the Son is interceding on our behalf to the Father,” said Roberts. “He is on the throne interceding for us and He knows what everyone is going through right now, and He is saying Father, they need the best that we can offer. Let them stay in our will.”

Luckert thanked Summit for opening their doors and hearts to the congregation. He also thanked First Baptist Church for doing the same as he announced that First Methodist will be having worship service at First Baptist Church at 11 a.m. Sunday.

“At 11 a.m., we’re going to be at First Baptist worshipping in their beautiful sanctuary. We’re in the process of kind of getting it ready for that. It’s a beautiful facility and our offices are also going to be there for a while until we have to figure out where we’re going.

“There’s a lot of unknown before us at First Methodist,” he shared, giving an update. “We’re going to learn patience. We’re going to learn it together. And God’s going to do something amazing in our midst. And I pray God does something amazing in our community, I really do, throughout all of our churches because we need it desperately.”