On Sunday, May 10, an emotional Greg Locke, pastor of Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee, spoke about his son Evan’s death before and during his sermon.
Locke posted on May 8 that Evan died after his heart stopped following a drug overdose and that he was unable to be revived.
“These aren’t just cute songs we sing,” Locke told the congregation after corporate worship. “You find out what you’re made of when the songs become real to you.”
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The pastor shared that some of his “dearest friends on the planet” traveled to be with his family after hearing the news of Evan’s death.
“Some of you have a closer bond to us than our own blood relatives,” Locke said. “And so we all grieve. We weep with those who weep. We dance with those that dance. We are happy. We have joy. But there’s a season for everything except quitting. That’s the one season God never gave you a choice in.”
“You start, but you can’t stop because when things aren’t good, God still is,” he added.
Locke prepared the congregation to welcome former members who have left the church to Evan’s upcoming celebration of life service.
“There will be a number of people that have already reached out asking if they can be here. And the answer is absolutely yes,” he said. “We will receive them with grace and love and forgiveness and reconciliation.”
“My wife actually received a pretty astoundingly unbelievable message this morning,” said Locke. “We’ll say more about that later, from some people that as of extraordinary recent days have deeply, deeply regretted their decision and have just really fallen on the sword asking for forgiveness.”
“The answer is yes,” Locke assured.
He continued, “There’ll be a lot of people here. Some people I did not expect to reach out did reach out and ask if they could be here. And I said, ‘Yeah, Evan would want that.’”
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So, he said, “receive everyone with grace and love them and let them know that you are glad to see them. If you’re not, don’t say anything, but be honest and love people. Wednesday will be a glorious time to lay our son to rest.”
Locke asked people to pray for Evan’s siblings as they work through different levels of grief.
“Pray for his siblings…Pray for them,” he said. “There’s different levels of grief depending on where you are in a relationship, and sibling grief, it’s a deep reality.”
The grieving father encouraged parents to forgive their children’s mistakes quickly and love them deeply.
