A Southern Baptist church planting resident at a Boston-area church found himself, along with his wife, in the crossfire of a police shootout early Friday morning (April 19) with one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Stephen McAlpin, who is nearing the end of a one-year North American Mission Board church planting internship with Hope Fellowship Church in Cambridge, Mass., had just gone to bed around 12:40 a.m. when he and his wife heard something that sounded like fireworks.

By then officials had identified two brothers believed to be responsible for the double bombings that killed three and injured more than 170 people April 15, and Thursday night the suspects hijacked a car in Cambridge and drove to Watertown, where McAlpin lives, while being pursued by police.

A dramatic shootout commenced outside McAlpin’s home, resulting in the death of one of the suspects. The other remained on the loose Friday, causing the entire city of Boston and surrounding communities to be placed on lockdown as police searched for him door to door.

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George Beverly Shea, the booming baritone who sang to millions of Christians at evangelist Billy Graham’s crusades, died Tuesday after a brief illness. He was 104.

Spokesman Brent Rinehart of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said Shea died in Asheville after a brief illness.

Shea’s rendition of “How Great Thou Art” came to define the faith of a Protestant generation that Graham helped bring to Jesus Christ. He performed live before an estimated 200 million people at crusades over the years — taking him from North Dakota to North Korea and beyond.

He joined Graham’s crusade team in 1947 and stayed until Graham’s declining health ended most of the evangelist’s public appearances nearly 60 years later. “As a young man starting my ministry, I asked Bev if he would join me,” Graham said then. “He said yes and for over 60 years we had the privilege of ministering together across the country and around the world. Bev was one of the most humble, gracious men I have ever known and one of my closest friends. I loved him as a brother.”

He recorded more than 70 albums, including “In Times Like These” (1962), “Every Time I Feel the Spirit” (1972) and “The Old Rugged Cross” (1978). In 1966 he won the Grammy Award for best gospel or other religious recording for his album “Southland Favorites,” recorded with the Anita Kerr Singers.

Mr. Shea received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy, which administers the Grammys, in 2011.

Of the hundreds of songs he sang, Mr. Shea was most closely identified with “How Great Thou Art,” a hymn that became the de facto anthem of Mr. Graham’s ministry. In 1957, at a crusade in New York City, Mr. Shea, by popular demand, sang it on 108 consecutive nights.

Other songs for which he was known include “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” for which he composed the music, and “The Wonder of It All,” for which he wrote words and music.

He is survived by his wife, the former Karlene Aceto. They were married in 1985. He has two children from a previous marriage, Ronald and Elaine.

Shea was often asked which of the many hymns he has sung over the past 60 years was his favorite. The one he always cited was derived from a poem written in the late 1800s by a Swedish pastor, Carl Gustaf Boberg.

“I never get tired of hearing ‘How Great Thou Art,’” he said in 2004. “It wears well. It still gets to your heart.”

George Beverly Shea Interview:

George Beverly Shea singing I’d Rather Have Jesus:

Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren sent a letter of appreciation via his newsletter over the weekend to everyone that prayed for his family in the aftershock of the suicide of his 27-year-old son Matthew a little more than a week ago.

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