In the Current Issue: "All Souls and the Club Q Vigils"
The issue of Liturgy entitled “Rites for Wounded Communities,” guest-edited by David Hogue, explores a wide range of responses in which churches and chaplains have engaged in order to help people affected by disasters and violence come to terms with the after-effects and the on-going trauma. This excerpt by Elizabeth Elliot describes the experiences of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, a congregation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that responded with pastoral compassion to a shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQIA+ bar not far from the church. –– Melinda Quivik
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On November 19, 2022, just before midnight, five people died and more than eighteen were injured in a mass shooting at the Club Q bar in Colorado Springs. The club is one of the few social spaces in the city that cater to the LGBTQIA+ community. It was a regular Saturday night with people at the bar and on the dance floor. The following morning, Club Q had planned to celebrate the Trans Day of Remembrance with a drag brunch. The violence that ensued disrupted lives, plans, and an entire community.
Less than six miles away . . . All Souls has been located on the corner of Tejon and E. Dale St. for more than 130 years. It is known as a progressive, liberal church, and 32 percent of its members self-identify as LGBTQIA+. The minister was scheduled to preach at a church in Denver that morning, so he scheduled the intern minister to give the sermon at the
10:30 a.m. worship service.
Inside Out Youth Services, which provides programs, support, and education for
LGBTQIA+ youth, is located less than a mile away from All Souls and is a strong community
partner with the church. The Executive Director called All Souls’ minister at 7:00 a.m. the morn-
ing of November 20th with a request: Would the church hold a vigil at 11:30 a.m. for the victims, family, and friends of the mass shooting that had happened just eight hours before? Without hesitation, he agreed to do so.
This set in motion a series of events that included the church’s own worship service and a series of three vigils that drew crowds of hundreds. At 7:30 a.m., phone calls began coming in from various community partners inquiring about plans and providing offers of assistance. Shortly after that, calls and texts arrived from the governor’s office, the mayor’s office, and several state representatives. Colorado College contacted the church to offer use of their parking garage across the street, and the local police asked to meet to coordinate security and street closures. The scope of the vigil was shifting dramatically. Word had spread about the vigil, and the church’s early assessment of several dozen people crumbled under the reality of potentially hundreds of attendees. By 9:00 a.m., people had already begun showing up at the church seeking pastoral care.
. . . Drawing Unitarian Universalist liturgical elements from rituals of loss, and compassionately centering traditionally marginalized communities, the worship team developed a modified service. . .
By 11:15 a.m., as All Souls’ worship service was ending and before the first vigil had even begun, the church had exceeded its occupancy capacity, and a large crowd was gathering outside. The church established a press room in the Religious Education wing to meet the increasing needs of the myriad of reporters—representing local, national, and international news outlets—clamoring for interviews and requesting information. . . The church crew of staff and volunteers could barely keep up with the demand for toilet paper, tissues, coffee, and water.
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Elizabeth Elliot an End-of-Life Doula, attends Iliff School of Theology and is seeking ordination in the Unitarian Universalist Association. https://www.bethelliot.com.
Elizabeth Elliot, “All Souls and the Club Q Vigils,” Liturgy 39, no. 2 (2024): 45–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.2024.2330321.