Not your usual Sunday

Um, I'm not a regular churchgoer, but I've been to services hosted by a number of different denominations, and they don't usually include this sort of thing:

Theater often punctuated the Rev. Fred Winters' sermons, so parishioners were initially unfazed when a stranger strode down First Baptist Church's main aisle as Winters preached and, with a series of bangs, made the pastor's Bible explode into a raft of confetti.

But as Winters ran from the front of the sprawling red brick church Sunday and collapsed with a fatal gunshot wound to the chest, churchgoers realized they were witnessing something horrifyingly real.

Uh, what the hell did they think was going on?

"Dramas have been incorporated into services, so I could see people first thinking it was part of a skit," said First Baptist member Christy Leith of Granite City, who said she has attended the church for about 10 years.

Again, I'm not exactly Charlie Church-attender here, but even the more spirited sermons I've witnessed didn't include special effects-style gunfire.