Contact: Ron Keener, Church Executive, 800-541-2670 ext. 204

MEDIA ADVISORY, April 5 /Christian Newswire/ -- When Seung-Hui Cho began a killing spree on the campus of Virginia Tech, ending in 32 staff and students killed and others wounded, on April 16, 2007, Jim Pace was sitting in a coffee shop he frequents about a block off campus.

Jim Pace talks about that tragedy on the third anniversary in the April issue of Church Executive, a magazine for larger churches in managing and leading. He is co-pastor of New Life Christian Fellowship in Blacksburg, Va., that has about 1,000 attendees, many of them students.

In the following hours Pace, 38, was part of a team that ministered to survivors and responded to media questions. He has written a book, "Should We Fire God?: Finding Hope in God When We Don't Understand" (FaithWords), published this month.

In light of the Virginia Tech killings, and more recent events as the Fort Hood killings and the Haiti earthquake, Church Executive asked what he makes of them. "I think our world is broken on every level," he said. "There really isn't a component of our existence at this point where things are going precisely the way that God intended.

"I believe that one day Jesus will return and recreate us, the planet, everything, into what he originally saw it to be," Pace said.

Into the tragedy some hours, Pace said "the awful math started" when students weren't able to hear from their friends who potentially were victims. He spoke of memories of "loading up all the bodies" and their cell phones constantly ringing as people tried to determine if they were safe or not.

Has Pace make any sense from the shootings over the past three years and in the writing of his book? The only sense, he says, is that "our world is broken, and it will hurt all of us at some point or another. While God does protect us from some of it, there are parts that we all must walk through with him."

And to the often asked question, "Why, God?," Pace says, "He does what I think he has to do with a creation that has been given freedom and has used that freedom to walk away and trash the place," believing too that "for those of us who return to him, he allows us to become a part of his wild redemptive plan for the rest of humanity."

For the article: churchexecutive.com/article.asp?IndexID=1347