Pastor Phillip Guin sensed a unique opportunity for outreach when debating what to do with the empty gully behind his Rocky Mount United Methodist Church recently.
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The Rocky Mount United Methodist Church, located in Jemison, Ala., has built a gun range where civilians can be trained to handle their guns properly.
“The ministry itself is what we’re doing in the name of Jesus Christ”, he said, taking issue with the way the local media presented his church’s effort, which packaged its story: “Parishioners Packing Heat”.
“I have described the gun range as a kind of means of grace”, explained Guin. Church members then began looking at ways to better utilize the land.
An Alabama church is using guns as a recruiting tool to get more congregation members through the door.
With the creation of the gun range came the creation of the Rocky Mount Hunt and Gun Club, which now leases the land for the gun range for liability purposes. Guin said of the gun range.
Anyone in the community can become a member of the hunting club and shoot targets, but the church’s target is unbelievers. “It is a bit unique out of the box as church ministry goes, but we see it no differently as a church having a softball team or hosting camping ministries”.
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“We’re not a bunch of gun loving militants at the church”, he said. “It’s about teaching people to safely and effectively use their hand guns or other weapons that they have”. The pastor killed in the shooting, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, also served as a state senator and was a proponent of keeping guns out of churches. The cost for the use of the range is $25 individually and $50 as a family, according to ABC 33/40 News.
