Highland Park Presbyterian Church on Sunday marked a year since the sudden passing of its senior pastor Bryan Dunagan.
The University Park church remembered Dunagan by singing together, thanking God for him in prayer and sharing fond memories of the beloved pastor.
Dunagan led the church for almost 10 years before his death on Oct. 26, 2023 at age 44.
Ali Dunagan, the pastor’s widow and mother of their three young children, spoke at the beginning of the Sunday evening service.
Her words were a mixture of grief, gratitude to the church and hope found in faith. “I feel like we’re collectively grieving, and collectively healing,” she said. “I look out in this room and I just see faces of people that have stood in the gap, who’ve held up my arms when I’ve wanted to lower them in despair.”
Ali said worship has helped her heal. “When I get to worship, I get to be near Bryan, and it is so beautiful,” she said.
Ali shared a written version of her speech with The Dallas Morning News ahead of the service.
“The act of worship draws my mind from a gloomy rut of despair into brighter truth of hope and redemption,” she wrote in that version of her remarks. “Being able to connect in song to the deep emotions that have welled up within me this year has aided my healing process.”
“Simply accepting the tremendous loss has taken much of this year because of how sudden and unexpected it was,” Ali wrote. “And just as true as the hurt, the pain and the despair, I have felt inexplicable comfort, hope and a deeper understanding of God’s love.”
During the service, speakers encouraged the congregation to break into small groups to share favorite stories about Bryan and pray with each other. Families hugged one another, and muffled crying could be heard throughout the room.
The last song at the service was “In God and God Alone,” which was written last year in Dunagan’s memory.
“I was actually personally trying to learn how to grieve Bryan’s passing, and I sat down in my living room and I wrote this song,” the church’s director of contemporary worship Aaron Williams said while introducing the song.
Williams said he posted the song on social media shortly after Dunagan died and Ali asked him to sing it at the pastor’s memorial last year. The church hasn’t sung it since, he said.
“Put your hope in God and God alone,” Williams urged the church. “That’s what we’ve done; that’s what we will continue to do.”
Bryan Dunagan died last year of “mixed drug toxicity to include ethanol, tramadol, and sertraline,” according to an autopsy report obtained by The News. His manner of death was ruled an accident by the medical examiner’s office.
After Dunagan’s autopsy report was released in January, the church shared a letter with its congregation. It gave more information about the circumstances surrounding the pastor’s death and included a message from Ali about the night before her husband died.
That night, Dunagan took tramadol, a pain medication he was prescribed after a knee injury, and “enjoyed drinks with the family,” Ali wrote. She also said he had been prescribed sertraline, an anti-anxiety medication, and had talked in a previous sermon about his struggles with anxiety.
“We’ve all been warned about the possible side effects and interactions of medications. Unfortunately, Bryan is in the small statistic of folks for whom these interactions were fatal,” Ali wrote.
The church has not replaced Dunagan and does not have an interim senior pastor, according to Zack House, the church’s creative director. The church is led by its board of elders, as it was before Dunagan’s passing, House said.
He said the congregation’s search for a new senior pastor is ongoing. The church does not have a timeline for when a new pastor will be named. Church leaders have shared updates on the pastor search on the congregation’s website over the past year.
Adrian Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.
