Pastor confronts man with rifle during sermon

Pastor Larry Wright was preaching to his small congregation in Fayetteville, North Carolina on New Year’s Eve when a man with a rifle walked into the ongoing service. The man had a gun in one hand, a magazine full of rounds in the other. Pastor Wright reportedly walked up to the gun bearing man and asked, “Can I help you?”

The glint of the gun, plus his experience working as an Army staff sergeant made the Pastor recognize the weapon was real. Still, he was worried the man had one round in the gun.

"I'm the first person to see him and when I saw him, I thought it was a dummy gun, but then I saw the bullet clip in his hand and the bullets were shining," he said.

As reported, Wright said he walked up to the man and said, "Can I help you?"

Interestingly, the man asked to be prayed for by the man of God.

Wright took the rifle and handed it to a deacon. One by one, the deacon and three others hugged the man to make him feel loved.

"And then I began to minister to him and pray to him and talk with him," Wright said.

It was only some few minutes before midnight and the Pastor had to finish his New Year Eve message, so he asked the man to sit in the front row and remain there.

"I finished the message, I did the altar call and he stood right up, came up to the altar, and gave his life to Christ," Wright said. "I came down and prayed with him and we embraced. It was like a father embracing a son."

Wright whispered in the man's ear that police were waiting in the vestibule because he had scared a lot of people.

Then the man asked to speak to the 60 or so churchgoers. He apologized to them, telling them when he set out that evening he intended to do something terrible that night. But the Lord spoke to him, he said.

Wright described the gunman as emotionally distraught even though his life seemed to be on the upswing.

He told the pastor he had just gotten out of prison, had a new job and a new bride. The man looked to be in his late 20s or early 30s, Wright said.

Sylvester Loving, a 67-year-old deacon, told the Fayetteville newspaper that the church was talking about gun violence when the man entered.

"I think that night the spirit of God was definitely in the place," Loving told the Observer.

Wright said he was talking about "senseless deaths" in the community.

People had seen the man pacing in the parking lot before the Watch Night service, which started at 10 p.m.

"It's so hard to describe, to explain the excitement and love of God in the room. This man came in to do harm and he has given his life to Christ," Wright said.

Wright has been a pastor at Heal the Land for 16 years and is a second-term city councilman. He has lived in Fayetteville since 1976.

Pastor Wright believes police took the unidentified man to a hospital for a mental evaluation.