Pastoring through grief and COVID

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 25th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

In April, 2020, a gunman dressed as a police officer went on a 13-hour shooting spree in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. He killed 23 people, including an unborn baby, and burned down five houses.

BROWN: The event devastated the close-knit community. Today we meet one local pastor who had to lead his church through the grief process during severe pandemic restrictions. WORLD Radio intern Anna Mandin spent a day with him recently and brings us his story.

CAMPBELL: It was during worship, that was when we found out what was happening—kind of tried our best to carry on, and then try to figure it out after.

ANNA MANDIN, INTERN: On the morning of April 19th, 2020, Pastor Andrew Campbell was leading online worship with his wife.

SERVICE VIDEO: Christ alone, cornerstone

Campbell is the pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada. At the time, churches were shut down.

NEWS VIDEO: The Coronavirus officially reaches pandemic proportions

The Campbells were at home live-streaming the service from their living room.

CAMPBELL: Folks would join in in the chat or whatever, through the chatbox. And we would try to interact a little bit that way.

Between the usual “Good mornings” were two unusual messages. One said, “my prayers are with our friends in Portapique today...Stay Safe.” Another was similar: “good morning everybody thank God for safety.”

CAMPBELL: Kind of tried our best to carry on, and then try to figure it out after it was later on in that day, just with a couple conversations with some other folks wondering if I had spoken or heard from John or Joanne.

He hadn’t. News was circulating about a shooting in Portapique, where church members John Zahl and Elizabeth Joanne Thomas lived. Police were on a manhunt for the shooter. For most of the morning, no one knew where he was. In the midst of it, Nova Scotians tried to piece together whether they knew any of the victims. Campbell called and messaged church members to see if they’d heard from the couple.

CAMPBELL: Come to find out later into that evening, that they were among the ones who were suspected to have been killed the night before. So that was really heartbreaking.

At the same time, Canadians around the country were learning of the tragedy.

NEWS VIDEO: On this night, the deadly mass shooting in Nova Scotia...

A 51-year-old man killed 23 people, including one unborn child, over the span of 13 hours and more than 60 miles. It was Canada’s deadliest mass shooting.

CAMPBELL: It took, at least I'd say, most of us a week to sort of get our heads around everything that happened. It takes a while to get your head and your heart to kind of line up and realize that yeah, this happened and and it hurts.

Usually, Campbell would have opened the church for people to come together to pray and grieve. But at the time, churches weren’t allowed to have in-person services. Campbell organized a Zoom call instead.

CAMPBELL: It wasn't maybe as what we would have wanted, but I think at least met some of the needs that we had, to be able to come together. I remember just talking a little bit about what had happened and that reminder of how even even in our darkest moments we need to turn to Christ, that that He is the light.

As the weeks went on, Campbell went through many dark moments.

CAMPBELL: I had to find a way to lament, to actually give it to God, because me trying to hang onto it wasn’t going to work.

He went to Psalms—like Psalm 6:

PSALM 6: Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD – how long?

CAMPBELL: How long? Oh, Lord, how long are we going to keep seeing this kind of news? Weekly, monthly, popping up daily at times?

NEWS: Thank you for joining us this evening as Nova Scotians try to come to grips with a deadly shooting spree in the province.

NEWS: The why will probably never make sense of such a horrific act.

This week, a public inquiry resumed to try to understand more about the shooting and the police response. After public outcry, officials are seeking to answer questions like why did it happen? What actually occurred in those 13 hours? Could police have prevented some deaths?

Campbell says he’s a “why person.” He wanted to know why something like this would happen. And he had to fight the temptation to become numb rather than process the pain.

CAMPBELL: Jesus very clearly told us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Who are we as His creation, if we start closing off parts of that?

But there were other people grieving alongside Campbell.

During the first week after the attacks, Campbell and his wife, too tired to cook, ordered Thai food from a local restaurant.

AUDIO: [Thai restaurant]

Four or five people were waiting inside. A T.V. was showing news about the shooting. The people in line began to talk.

Every person knew at least one of the victims.

Communities in Nova Scotia are very interconnected. The province has less than one million people, and families have often lived in rural towns for generations.

CAMPBELL: It was breathtakingly beautiful and yet so harrowing and heartbreaking to see all of those connections that we have as people and yet seeing all of them sort of snapped or broken at the same time.

Some people were angry at God. But Campbell saw that as an opportunity. He’d ask them:

CAMPBELL: If you're angry, can I pray with you? Can we take that to God?

Campbell understood their anger. He struggled with it too.

CAMPBELL: We end up a little possessive of our own anger, we don't want to let it go. And following Jesus means that we have to be willing to let God have that.

As a pastor, Campbell spent hours shepherding others through their grief. But there were times when the congregation pastored him as well.

CAMPBELL: Church is at its best when we are all having that level of openness, and that it's not one person who's above and one person who's below, but that we're all brothers and sisters.

Campbell continues to grieve, especially in the face of the public inquiry. But he hasn’t lost the hope they sang about in April 2020.

SERVICE VIDEO: When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace.

CAMPBELL: Certainly those were some very dark days and I think there was also a lot of those moments where God was showing up and reminding us and moving us towards light and hope.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Mandin in Truro, Nova Scotia.

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