Another disastrous church shooting incident was averted on New Year’s Eve when a man toting a semi-automatic assault rifle entered a North Carolina church and was met with overwhelming resistance – the love of God.

The Fayetteville Observer is reporting on the story of a man who walked into the Heal the Land Outreach Ministries in Fayetteville during a New Year’s Eve prayer service with an assault weapon in one hand and an ammunition clip in the other.

The church’s pastor, Larry Wright, who is a city councilman as well as a retired career military man, saw the man coming down the aisle, while delivering his sermon.

In front of about 60 startled parishioners, the man announced that the Lord had told him he needed to go to church before he did something bad.

Wright met the man halfway down the aisle and calmly asked, “Can I help you?’’

The 57 year-old pastor who is over six feet tall and weighs 230 pounds, said the man’s answer would determine his next action.

“If he was belligerent, I was going to tackle him,” the pastor said.

But the stranger was calm, and Wright was able to take the weapon away from him. As he patted him down to check for hidden weapons, he summoned four strong deacons to embrace the stranger in an effort to make him feel welcome.

Wright then began to pray for the man who instantly fell to his knees and began to sob.

As it turned out, the man, whose name has not yet been released by police, was a parolee and a military veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, Wright told NBC News.

“The man’s wife had recently been diagnosed with a serious illness, and he was off his medication. He needed money. He was stressed,” NBC reports.

“He got the gun because he was going to rob to get money,” Wright said. “He was going to do what he had to do to take care of his family. . . . He was going to do some damage.”

Instead, the man sat in a pew near the pulpit for the rest of the service. Afterward, police detained him but no charges were filed. He was put back on his medication and released.

On Sunday, Wright was surprised to see the man appear at the church again, this time for a much different reason.

He wanted to be baptized.

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