Dozens of people gathered at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church Wednesday, a week after a gunman, apparently motivated by white supremacist ideology, opened fire on a prayer service at a sister church in Charleston, S.C.

The message these church members were sending was “the doors of the church are still open.”

The phrase was often repeated throughout the hour-long prayer service in memory of nine people shot to death inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.

“Our faith will not be stolen, even by violence as heinous as the assassination of nine innocent people and the terror that left bodies wounded and souls injured among those who survived the attack,” the Rev. Arnita Spencer, pastor of Bethel said during the service.

On June 17, a gunman shot and killed nine people as more than a dozen worshipers concluded a weekly Bible study.

Dylann Roof is being held for the attack. He’s accused of sitting with the victims for an hour during Bible study before making racially offensive remarks and opening fire.

“We cannot make sense of the tragedy that happened at Mother Emmanuel,” the Rev. Beverly Baskins of St. James and Travis Chapel AME churches said. “We do not really know the magnitude of hurt and despair those families in Charleston are feeling but we know God is in the blessing business.”

Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder in the shootings.

Among the victims was Emanuel AME’s pastor and South Carolina state Sen. Rev. Clementa “Clem” Pinckney, whom Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. called a friend during the service. Flaggs said he last saw Pinckney in Washington, D.C.

“He was a dynamic, awesome, eloquent leader,” Flaggs said.

Yet, change is coming though the deaths of Pinckney and the eight others inside Emannuel AME, Flaggs said.

“There is a message in every death. There is a message in blood. There is a message in every gunshot. The message here is the time has come … for us to unite and do those things that are good and to stop the violence,” Flaggs said.