Sep. 20—JAMESTOWN — The pastor of Victory Lutheran Church in Jamestown will attend Charlie Kirk’s funeral on Sunday, Sept. 21, in Glendale, Arizona, as one of 200 clergymen who were invited by TPUSA Faith.
“I just consider it to be a tremendous honor to be invited to be part of this,” the Rev. Shawn Bowman said.
Bowman said Kayla Cross, a regional director with TPUSA Faith, reached out to him last week to see if he would be interested in attending and sitting with other pastors toward the front at Kirk’s funeral at State Farm Stadium, home of the Arizona Cardinals, in Glendale.
“At first, I blew it off,” he said. “I thought this must be a blanket statement to millions of pastors all over the country.”
He said Cross followed up and sent Bowman another text message. Bowman contacted Cross and was told that 200 pastors across the U.S. were invited to attend Kirk’s funeral. He said Cross nominated him to attend the funeral to represent the Big Sky Territory that includes North Dakota.
Bowman said he did not know if he could attend Kirk’s funeral because of a sermon series and he wanted to go to a funeral on Monday, Sept. 22. He told the Victory Lutheran Church Board of Directors about the invitation and a board member reached out to him the following day, saying Bowman should attend the funeral.
Bowman said he reached out to Cross again and told her to notify him if a spot opens up to attend the funeral.
“Three minutes later she said, ‘Buy your tickets, you’re coming,'” he said.
Kirk was an American right-wing political activist who co-founded the conservative organization Turning Point USA. He was shot during an event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
Bowman, who learned about Kirk online a few years ago, said Victory Lutheran Church is a TPUSA Faith member.
TPUSA Faith’s mission is to be dedicated to empowering Christians to put their faith into action, according to the organization’s website. TPUSA Faith engages, equips and empowers millions of Americans who are prepared to defend their God-given rights by giving them the tools to expose lies and articulate the connection between faith and freedom, the website says.
“I would encourage all the churches that love the Lord to be TPUSA Faith members and to be equipped and to learn how to engage issues and policies and situations that don’t benefit families,” he said.
Bowman said he met Kirk at an event in Mandan, North Dakota, in 2022 with more than 20 pastors. At the event, Kirk shared his vision of TPUSA Faith and why he wants to get chapters across the country.
“He wanted churches to be more bold, to stand on things that the Bible calls a sin,” Bowman said. “He was trying to fan that flame of being proactive in doing the things that God would have us do and to take stands in the community.”
During the event in Mandan, Kirk invited Bowman to a pastor’s conference in San Diego. Bowman attended the event in San Diego where he recalled Kirk remembering that he was from Jamestown.
“It was an awesome weekend, just powerful, tremendous speakers,” Bowman said. “That’s kind of where I got to know him and experience just kind of the movement that he was starting of our country just standing firm on the principles that we’ve always held near and dear to us since our inception as a nation.”
Bowman said Kirk wanted people to be equipped with resources and to know how to stand on their faith to make their communities healthy and stronger.
“He knew that the only way to do that was through Christianity,” he said. “The more I got to know him and some of the people that are part of that organization, I considered it an honor for our church to be working with them.”
Bowman said it’s sad that Americans are mourning Kirk, who was a “great American Christian man who loved his country, Lord, wife and two children.”
“It was a senseless, heinous, awful crime and just senseless and shouldn’t have never happened, but we have evil in the world,” he said.
He said he sees Kirk as a Christian martyr who could have a “tremendous” impact on the country. He said Turning Point USA had 54,000 requests for new chapters nationwide since Kirk’s death.
“As a Christian, this is your turning point because the blood of the martyrs, the blood of Charlie Kirk, is really calling us all to stand up,” Bowman said. “For all of us who call in the name of Jesus, they were all called to be a Charlie Kirk. They were all called to stand on the word of God and to be bold with our faith and not to be ashamed of what the word of God says.”
Bowman said Kirk’s funeral service will be livestreamed at 1 p.m. at Victory Lutheran Church, 510 9th Ave. SW.