A Southern Baptist pastor was gunned down while preaching Sunday morning in Illinois, the St. Louis Post-Dispatchreports.

Pastor Fred Winters would’ve forgiven the man who killed him, friends say.

Winters led a thriving Southern Baptist congregation, First Baptist Church in Marysville, Illinois. Average attendance had climbed from 32 in 1987 to 1,200 at the time of his death.

The shooting leaves two children without a father.

Southern Illinois is fertile ground for Southern Baptists. Wedged in between Kentucky and Missouri, this part of Illinois is quite different from Chicago — or anywhere else north of the Mason Dixon line. In some southern Illinois counties, Southern Baptists make up more than 25 percent of the population.

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