Good morning, Weekend Plug-in readers. I wrote Plug-in a day early because headed to Arlington, Texas, for Opening Day, and I’ll be tied up with that important national holiday.

My beloved Texas Rangers open the 2023 season against the Philadelphia Phillies this afternoon. Surely this will be my team’s best season ever!

But first, we focus on the week’s big, tragic and violent news from Covenant Presbyterian Church and its school in Nashville, Tennessee, a city close to my heart.

What To Know: The Big Story

Three children, three adults slain: Once again, a mass shooting at a school shocked all of us and surprised none of us.

At a Wednesday night vigil in Nashville, “Each speaker echoed the names of those who did not return home earlier this week.”

The children who died were Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all 9 years old. The adults who died were Mike Hill, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Cynthia Peak, 61.

The victims were people of strong faith with the children characterized as “feisty” and a “shining light,” according to an Associated Press team, including Nashville-based religion news editor Holly Meyer.

Peaceful day shattered: Monday started with a normal chapel assembly at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian elementary, Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman and Kate Shellnutt report.

Within a few hours, though, the school, which is all about “celebrating” children, became a killing scene, as Reuters’ Sharon Bernstein describes it.

The Southern Baptist Convention, which is based in Nashville and in which a Southern Baptist church was where parents and Covenant School students were reunified: https://t.co/CwrMTh3l8g
— Liam Adams (@liamsadams) March 27, 2023

Traumatized survivors were taken to a nearby Baptist church that served as a reunification site for children and parents, as The Tennessean’s Molly Davis explains.

For ongoing coverage, follow religion reporter, Liam Adams.

Making sense of it: In the face of tragedy, petitioning God is an act of faith, New York Times columnist David French writes.

After the Nashville shooting, moral numbness is our enemy, Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore declares.

And in a piece titled “Weeping in Nashville,” published by Religion News Service, Presbyterian pastor Scott Sauls contemplates the “Why?” of the shooting.

For the believer, prayer isn’t a substitute for action, it’s a prerequisite for action. It grounds us before we serve others. It grounds us before we speak in the public square. Prayer helps us grieve, prayer helps us hope, and prayer helps us act: https://t.co/pX86Lo4c6h
— David French (@DavidAFrench) March 30, 2023

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Revisiting Sutherland Springs: For years for the San Antonio Express-News, Silvia Foster-Frau provided sensitive, nuanced coverage of the 2017 massacre at a Baptist church in Texas.

Now with the Washington Post, Foster-Frau — with colleague Holly Bailey — explores how the Sutherland Springs survivors “endure lifelong disability and trauma left behind by a gunman’s use of an AR-15.”

2. Faith-based disaster relief: Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana catches up with volunteers serving after weekend tornadoes killed dozens in the Deep South. The Christian Chronicle’s Calvin Cockrell offers more details.

Churches are providing solace in the twister-ravaged Mississippi Delta, according to The Associated Press’ Michael Goldberg. In the devastated town of Rolling Fork, helpers “just showed up with plywood and some hands” to save a century-old church, Mississippi Public Broadcasting reports.

CONTINUE READING: “Tears And Faith After The Covenant School Shooting In Nashville” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.