LYNCHBURG, Va. – In Diamond Hill Baptist Church, praise and prayer filled the sanctuary.
Church leaders from across the commonwealth, gathered in Lynchburg for their annual Baptist church convention, took the time to honor the 26 lives lost in the Texas church shooting.
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Although this was not planned for their annual event, church leaders from Martinsville want to use this time to stress the importance of church security.
“We'd be remiss to have a couple hundred churches registered for this meeting and not address the concerns and not address, first of all the tragedy, but then some of the measures we need to take,” said Charles Whitfield, the president of Virginia Baptist State Convention.
They say during the church service Wednesday night, they started addressing security measures.
"Tonight we made sure that things here were secure. It wasn't visible, you didn't know, I'm sure,” Whitfield said.
Pastors we spoke to say this is not a political issue but a moral one and hope their legislatures make some changes.
"I believe that weapons are getting in the hands of individuals who can't properly handle them and manage them, and of course it's creating a problem across the land,” Whitfield said.
Pastors say it starts with planning -- even if that means taking the congregation through an active shooting exercise or hiring security.
“To put money behind it so that if we have to pay for external and internal security that our people will know across Virginia, in Central Virginia in particular, that they can come and worship in the house of faith, be safe and go home alive,” James Coleman, social justice chair for Churches United for Service, said.