You lean on them in the tough times. Yet pastors certainly aren’t immune.

“When I first heard the news, I had two thoughts simultaneously,” says Terry Kyllo, a local Lutheran and Episcopal pastor. “One was grief. Not only for the LGBTQ community in Orlando, but also across this country. And how members of that community and their family members must just be feeling incredibly vulnerable today.”

As for his second thought?

“Was for the many good, American Muslims in this country, and how they must be feeling also vulnerable today.”

Kyllo is part of a local ministry trying to make strides in not judging a holy book by its cover, but by the majority of people who respect that holy book.

“I was at a high school this last week, and a student asked me if there was gonna be conflict between, you know, Christians and Muslims. And I said, ‘well I don’t think that’s the source of the conflict,’ ” says Kyllo. “Mostly the conflict is between those who want to use their faith to exclude people who are different from them from the dignity that should be given to every human being.”

He always begins with an acknowledgement.

“There is a distortion of Islam, which teaches this kind of exclusionist view. And most Muslims do not agree with that exclusionist view,” he said.

In much the same way other groups, even Christians, have been associated with heinous crimes.

“Dylan Roof is gonna be on trial here for the shooting at Mother Emanuel Church”, Kyllo says. “He was a Lutheran, the same denomination that I serve. And yet people did not call it a radical Lutheran, you know, terrorism.”

And that might be his real heartbreak. A group of people who loved and supported each other in a place they perceived as safe, were anything but safe.

It can happen at a gay bar. It can happen in a sanctuary.

Pastor Kyllo hopes EVERY community continues forward, and continues to strengthen, and continues to find acceptance.

“And to build up our neighborhood. And yes, they can be destroyed, but we also know that there is something deeper,” Kyllo explains. “But recognize that their tradition teaches them to love their neighbor. Even the neighbor, maybe especially the neighbor, who we perceive to be different from us.”