With shots fired, a hostage situation and officers responding, little other than an audience provided the reminder that it was only a drill.

"We want to provide training that is real for our students,” said Byron Klaus, president of the seminary.

At this training, which was three months in the planning, students and staff members wielded toy guns and blood capsules, and even sprung a few tears.

"It was realistic enough to smell and hear and feel all of the action of a situation like that,” said Manuel Cordero of AG’s Correctional Ministries.

It’s all because situations like that have happened.

“Just recently in Nashville, there was a shooting with a disgruntled member who came in and shot somebody. Last December in Colorado Springs and Denver, a number of churches were invaded and people were shot,” said Klaus.

Law enforcement agents and first responders from the Greene County Sheriff's Department, the Springfield Police Department, and St. John's also donned full gear and went through the motions -- in the name of an exercise that they hope never proves necessary.

"Maybe it would relieve some of the fear an event like this would have. Can I handle it?" said Klaus.

"We're just trying to be contemporary with skills ministers and chaplains are needing these days,” said Cordero.

Klaus says this event was intended to help identify gaps in their security. More than that, this school produces a number of chaplains -- military and otherwise. If they don't face this situation at the seminary, this is one more notch in the training of those future chaplains.