A group of local clergy and others is set to worship today at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where nine people were killed in a racially motivated shooting earlier this year.

“We here in the Suffolk community are showing love,” said the Rev. Derrell Wade of Macedonia A.M.E. Church on Pine Street in Suffolk. “We’re showing the love of Christ and unity.”

The trip has been planned for some time, but it had to be coordinated closely with the host church because of the large number of people that have been coming from outside the Charleston area to worship at Emanuel A.M.E., said the Rev. Skip Irby.

“We’re just going down there to worship with them and show our support and solidarity with them,” Irby said. “It will be quite a moving experience. I’m just glad I have this opportunity.”

Irby said about 35 people are on the trip but, speaking on Friday, he was not yet sure who most of them are.

The group left Suffolk about 5 a.m. Saturday on a 55-passenger bus chartered by Councilman Mike Duman. Councilman Lue Ward also helped plan the trip, Duman said.

Duman said he was moved by the response to a July 7 prayer vigil organized by the same group of pastors following the June 17 shooting, which took the lives of the Emanuel A.M.E. pastor and eight others who had gathered for Bible study.

“In short order, the clergy and the community leaders joined together in solidarity to send a message to demonstrate that a single act does not reflect the attitude of the majority,” Duman said.

Wade said his church had gathered for Bible study at the exact time of the Bible study at Emanuel A.M.E.

“As an A.M.E. pastor, as a Christian, my heart bleeds for the people of Emanuel A.M.E.,” he said. “But for the grace of God, this could have happened at Macedonia A.M.E. We find it to be a major tragedy in that people are studying the word of God, people have embraced this young man to come in, and he spends more than an hour with them and then chooses, for whatever reason, to kill them.

Wade said the trip sends a message, particularly to the congregation of Emanuel A.M.E.

“The trip to Charleston says to them that regardless of what race, what religion we serve, we all serve the same God,” he said.