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Churchgoers outside the Maryville First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill., after a shooting on Sunday.

A pastor was shot to death and two congregants were stabbed Sunday at a church in this village near St. Louis, the police said.

A man strode down the aisle of First Baptist Church shortly after 8 a.m. and briefly spoke with the Rev. Fred Winters, then pulled out a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and began firing until it jammed, said Larry G. Trent, director of the Illinois State Police.

Churchgoers wrestled the gunman to the ground as he waved a knife, slashing himself and two other people, Mr. Trent said.

None of the 150-or-so congregants seemed to recognize the gunman. Investigators do not know details of Mr. Winters’s conversation with him but plan to review an audio recording of the service, Mr. Trent said. The service was not videotaped.

The police said Mr. Winters deflected the first of the gunman’s four rounds with a Bible, sending a confetti-like spray of paper into the air.

“We thought it was part of a drama skit,” said a congregant, Linda Cunningham, whose husband is a minister of adult education at the church. “When he shot, what you saw was confetti. We just sat there waiting for what comes next, not realizing that he had wounded the pastor.”

Ms. Cunningham said Mr. Winters had stood on an elevated platform to deliver his sermon about finding happiness in the workplace and managed to run halfway down the sanctuary’s side aisle before collapsing.

Two congregants tackled the gunman as he pulled the four-inch knife, and all three were stabbed, the police said.

Mr. Winters was pronounced dead at Anderson Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The gunman and a congregant underwent surgery at St. Louis University Hospital and were in serious condition Sunday evening, while the other victim was treated at Gateway Regional Medical Center and released.

The authorities did not know whether Mr. Winters, a married father of two who had led the church for nearly 22 years, knew the gunman. The police described him as a 27-year-old from nearby Troy but would not release his name pending possible charges.

The Rev. Mark Jones, another pastor at First Baptist, said he had briefly seen the gunman but did not witness the shooting, though he said he heard a sound like miniature firecrackers. “We have no idea what this guy’s motives were,” Mr. Jones said.

First Baptist had an average attendance of 32 people when Mr. Winters became senior pastor in 1987; it now has about 1,200 members, according to the church’s Web site.

Mr. Winters was also a former president of the Illinois Baptist State Association and an adjunct professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, according to the site.

“Our great God is not surprised by this, or anything,” Nate Adams, executive director of the Baptist association, said in a statement. “That he allows evil and free will to have their way in tragedies like this is a mystery in many ways.”

The red brick church sits along a busy two-lane highway on the east side of Maryville, a village of more than 7,000. “We’ve lost one of the pillars of our community, one of our leaders,” Mayor Larry Gulledge said.

Sharla Dryden, 62, pulled into the church parking lot for a 9:30 a.m. service Sunday to see “just a lot of chaos, lot of police, fire, and people just devastated.”

“They just said there had been a shooting,” Ms. Dryden said. “I would have been devastated if anyone had been shot, but to hear it was the pastor was terrible.”

A statement on First Baptist’s Web site asked for prayers for Mr. Winters’s family, the congregants who tackled the gunman, the gunman and his family, and church members.

Credit:THENYTIMES

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