Missouri pastor says God saved his life after 2 teens held him at gunpoint

By Nicole VanDyke, CP Reporter Friday, February 10, 2023

A Missouri pastor is crediting God with saving his life after he was held at gunpoint and carjacked by two teenage boys a fortnight ago.

On most Friday evenings, Pastor Mike Coleman of Carondelet Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri, would join other men from the congregation to do maintenance work on the building. But the evening of Jan. 27 nearly ended in tragedy.

After he parked his minivan in the church's parking lot, Coleman said he began walking across the parking lot toward the entrance of the building. As he walked, two teenage boys passed by, but he didn’t find that unusual because it's common to see pedestrians who have no affiliation with the church walking nearby.

Coleman told The Christian Post that he gazed his eyes downward for a moment and then back up and noticed the teen boys had walked out of his line of sight. Not thinking anything of it, Coleman said he continued walking across the parking lot.

Suddenly, the boys reappeared. They ran up to Coleman from behind, placed a gun against his face and demanded he hand over his phone, wallet and car keys.

Coleman told CP that the entire incident was recorded on a surveillance camera he had previously installed outside the church.

“When I watched the playback of the surveillance video, I realized there's a 20-second period where the two boys are in my car doing nothing and they told me to stay still. And I had those 20 seconds, and in that time, I forgot that I was a pastor and administrator and a good guy,” Coleman said.

“I was thinking about how I can get my car back and what I could do if I had my own weapon or if I had my own instrument or device. I wasn't thinking Christian thoughts.”

Threatened at gunpoint, Coleman said he was enraged with anger as he feared for his life, but he knew God was by his side the entire time.

“I felt like I was outside God's grace as far as my thoughts went. But I knew I was inside His grace as far as protection. So, it was a bag of mixed emotions that I experienced during the incident,” Coleman said.

“I was so angry that I would have hurt two children if I was capable. And when I say hurt, I don't know how far I would have gone with that. But I know I would want to survive. And again, it was mixed emotions from the spiritual and the practical. It was hard to walk both lines.”

Three days after the incident, a 13-year-old boy was taken into custody. The boy’s mother reported him to authorities and he was remanded to the Juvenile Courts, according to CBS' St. Louis affiliate KMOV4. Coleman said he has decided to press charges against the two boys to hold them accountable.

Coleman said he will never forget the moment during the incident when he told the two boys where to put the key to turn on the ignition.

The boys were young and seemed inexperienced and the pastor worried if he didn’t help them figure out how to turn on the car they might retaliate by hurting him.

"I had no choice," he recalled. "They opened the door and with the gun still pointed at me, they told me to come toward them and to show them how to start the car. They were so inexperienced. They didn't even know how to drive the car."

“I think they took their driving lessons from a video game or something. And they seemed to have never been behind the wheel of a car before. It would have almost been comical if the gun wasn't pointed at me at the time that they were asking me to do that.”

The two boys smashed Coleman’s phone, stole his wallet and drove off with his van, which they crashed into two other parked cars in front of the church.

“My wallet was a complete loss. I had to cancel everything, all my cards. The phone that they threw down and smashed slid underneath the truck. So, I got it back, but it was so badly damaged. Other than a few photos and some calendar dates, the phone wasn't much use,” Coleman said.

Valuing the Scripture that says “pray for those who persecute you,” the pastor said he's prayed to God to not only help get the boys on the right track, but also to help him to be able to forgive the boys.

Crime has been rising in his St. Louis community in recent years, he added, explaining that the carjacking has motivated him, in his own ministry, to reach out to the youth in the community and share the Gospel.

“The younger generation, I don't think they hear the Gospel enough. I don't think they hear about grace and mercy. I'm being criticized for prosecuting these kids because people are saying, ‘There has to be forgiveness involved. And if you'll give them a chance to ask for forgiveness, then how can you do that?’” Coleman said.

“The younger people need to be engaged and realize there's higher authority other than the city of St. Louis. There’s the state of Missouri and the United States. They need to start acting and growing in grace and they're not getting that, and that's partially my fault for not opening the doors of my church wider.”

Coleman said he has received an outpouring of support and love from his church community and many have donated to help pay for his van to be restored after the wreckage.

He noted that this incident has taught him that having a strong faith goes a long way.

“I was prepared to go and face death if that would have been my fate. Whether it's a car accident or something like this or whether I'm diagnosed with the disease, I'm not going to mourn or fret over it because my walk with Christ is strong,” he said.

Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: nicole.alcindor@christianpost.com.