The eight prisoners declined the offer to wear blindfolds and instead stood and faced their executioners. According to witnesses, they recited the Lord’s Prayer, embraced one another, and sang ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘10,000 Reasons’, before their voices were drowned out by gunfire.
All but one of the eight had turned to Christ since the start of their incarceration.
Redman described the incident as ‘profound’.
‘Firstly, as a worship leader, that’s the most amazing act of worship I’ve ever heard of,’ he said. ‘Secondly, it tells me that you can face anything in this life and still be found with a song of worship on your lips, even a firing squad. And thirdly, I just thought, “How did that song end up there?” What an amazing thing.
‘Sometimes people are looking at charts or how many people showed up at a worship event. Forget all that stuff. What’s the stuff that’s immeasurable, that you can’t really put a figure on? That’s the stuff I love. There’s no way of measuring that. It’s just profound, it’s immense, it’s intense.’
