Wednesday, June 8, 2022 page 3By Michelle Smith
contributing writer
A Lowell church is
hoping to bring healing to
the community regarding
gun violence, as well as
provide an outlet for people
to express themselves.
The Lowell United
Methodist Church on Main
Street set up a memorial
honoring the victims of
the Uvalde, Texas school
shooting. The memorial
consists of 21 chairs
representing each victim
who was killed at Robb
Elementary, May 24.
Davin Risk, the church’s
worship pastor, said the idea
for the memorial comes from
other Methodist churches
across the country who are
creating similar tributes.
Risk said his church,
along with other churches,
have expressed a desire to
take action to bring about
greater awareness of the
problem of gun violence,
especially in the nation’s
schools.
Not claiming to know
what the answers are to gun
violence, Risk said many
feel a call to action. He said
Lowell church creates memorial for Uvalde gun violence victims
engaging one another in
productive conversations is
a good first step.
“This is important
enough that the conversation
has to happen, and everyone
has to feel this. If this much
pain, that’s regularly in our
faces, is what it’s going to
take to elicit some kind of
response, then that’s what
we need to do,” he said.
Risk said many people
have visited the memorial
from the church and around
the community, and many
have had conversations
about it on social media
sites. He noted, as well, that
the cars that pass by their
very visible location will at
least bring attention to gun
violence and keep passersby
thinking about it.
Pastor Brad Brillhart
said getting people to think
about gun violence, and
engage in conversations
about, it might be a first step
toward finding a solution to
the problem.
“We want to get people
to think about it, engage it.
Not that we want to play off
our emotions, but sometimesthat’s what it takes to
engage our minds and our
hearts and find a solution
together,” he said.
“We want it to be the
community’s memorial.”
Brillhart and Risk said
the memorial will remain upfor the foreseeable future.
Risk said the memorial has
changed by adding artwork
and sidewalk chalk for
people who would like to
write a message.
Risk said the church
opened up their educational
wing as a space for the
community after the
Oxford, Michigan shooting
Nov. 30, 2021. The church
provided canvases and art
supplies for students to
express themselves through
art. It ended up being a
very emotional time for
some high schoolers, not all
affiliated with the church or
youth group.
“As an adult, you feel
it in a way that is important,
but these kids, they see iton the news, they feel it,
and then they have to put
their backpack on and walk
through the doors the next
day. This allowed them the
opportunity to express that
kind of pain,” Risk said.
The memorial is set up
to be impactful because it
gives a visual to how many
lives were taken in the
Uvalde shooting.
“When you walk past
19 chairs, and you just
imagine the kids that would
be sitting in those chairs,or if you go out there and
you sit in one of the two
teacher’s chairs, you feel it
in a different way. It’s just
really powerful,” Risk said.
“We have a problem
that has to be addressed in
some way, and yet we don’t
know the answers,” he said.
“If every single person
doesn’t feel this and is
drawn into a conversation,
it’s scary to think what it’s
going to take if it hasn’t
already.”Lowell United Methodist Church’s Worship Pastor, Davin Risk, and Pastor
Brad Brillhart, display artwork created in response to gun violence in schools.
Lowell United Methodist church’s memorial dedicated to the Uvalde shooting victims.