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 The pastor of a prominent Idaho church was shot and critically wounded in the church's parking lot Sunday, a day after he delivered the invocation at a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, authorities told NBC News. 
 
 Tim Remington, 55, senior pastor of the nondenominational Altar Church in Coeur d'Alene, was taken to Kootenai Health and Medical Center in critical condition, police and the hospital told NBC News. The hospital reported his status as stable late Sunday night. 
 
 Tim Remington, senior pastor of The Altar Church in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, at a church program gathering in 2014. KHQ-TV 
 
 Coeur d'Alene police Detective Jared Reneau said that when officers arrived shortly before 2 p.m. (5 p.m. ET), they found Remington with multiple gunshot wounds. Matthew Remington, Remington's nephew, told NBC station KTVB of Boise that his uncle was conscious and was talking to emergency workers on the way to the hospital. 
 
 The gunman fled and remains at large. Coeur d'Alene Police identified the suspect late Sunday as Kyle Andrew Odom, 30, a white man in his mid-30s with blond hair and blue eyes. Odom was believed to have been driving a 2004 silver Honda Accord, and police warned he should be considered armed and dangerous. 
 
 Coeur d’Alene police detectives have identified Kyle Andrew Odom, of Coeur d’Alene, as the suspect in Sunday's shooting at The Altar Church. Coeur d’Alene Police 
 
 Associate pastor John Padula told NBC station KHQ of Spokane, Washington, that there is surveillance of the man waiting in a silver car for Remington. He told The Associated Press that Remington has been threatened several times by some of the drug addicts he works with through his faith-based recovery program. 
 
 Padula said the church was praying for the gunman as well as Remington. 
 
 "We don't love him less than anybody else," Padula said. "And we pray that he comes to know Jesus Christ as his lord and savior, so we don't want to see anything bad happen to him, either." 
 
 Remington, a prominent spokesman for conservative issues, delivered the opening prayer for Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas who is among the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, at a rally Saturday at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. 
 
 Folks are trickling into the CDA Assembly church to pray for pastor Tim @KHQLocalNews pic.twitter.com/liWpECokyv — Katie Chen (@KHQKatieChen) March 7, 2016 
 
 "Our prayers are with Pastor Tim, his family, and the doctors who are supervising his care," Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Cruz's campaign, told NBC News. "We pray for his full recovery and are thankful for the efforts of law enforcement to ensure the attacker is swiftly brought to justice." 
 
 Remington grew up in Coeur d'Alene, in northern Idaho, and was pastor of a church in California during the 1980s, when he started a street ministry for drug and alcohol addicts, according to a biography on the church's website. 
 
 He returned home to Coeur d'Alene about 18 years ago and started The Altar Church, as well as the Good Samaritan Rehabilitation drug and alcohol residential program. He and his wife, Cindy, have four children. ||||| Members of a Coeur d’Alene church prayed Sunday night for the recovery of their pastor after he was gunned down earlier in the day by an assailant in the church parking lot. 
 
 And they marveled at reports from the hospital that pastor Tim Remington was expected to pull through despite being shot as many as six times, including in the head and a lung. 
 
 “He’s absolutely fine,” said John Padula, outreach pastor at Altar Church, after speaking with doctors at Kootenai Health. 
 
 The suspected shooter, 30-year-old Kyle Andrew Odom, of Coeur d’Alene, fled the scene in a silver 2004 Honda Accord with Idaho license plate K578519, police said. Odom has blond hair and blue eyes, is 6 feet tall and weighs about 170 pounds. 
 
 He is considered armed and dangerous, police said. Anyone who knows his location is asked to call 911. 
 
 “We need to make sure this individual is taken off the streets as quickly as possible,” Coeur d’Alene police Chief Lee White said. 
 
 Odom was a corporal in the Marine Corps and studied biochemistry at the University of Idaho, according to his Facebook page. 
 
 Remington, 55, was shot the day after he prayed with presidential hopeful Ted Cruz at a campaign rally in Coeur d’Alene and gave the invocation at the start of the event. 
 
 He has spent years building a faith-based recovery program for drug addicts and alcoholics, and he has counseled jail inmates. 
 
 Remington has been threatened several times over the years by addicts he has tried to help, Padula said. 
 
 White said investigators don’t yet know of a motive for the shooting. 
 
 “For the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, this is all hands on deck,” he said. “We’re getting everybody out here to investigate this crime.” 
 
 The shooting was recorded by a security camera at the church, at 901 E. Best Ave. Padula, who viewed the footage, said the suspect was inside the church during morning services. 
 
 The man “kind of wandered around,” then went outside and waited in his car about 10 minutes before Remington left the church just before 2 p.m., Padula said. Remington opened his car door, and the shooter walked up behind him “and just started shooting him in the back,” he said. 
 
 The shooter stood in a military-like posture, Padula said. “It didn’t look like the first time he had shot. He stood pretty professional as he was shooting.” 
 
 Remington’s car was pierced by bullets and shell casings were left scattered on the pavement. 
 
 Two men at the church quickly ran to their pastor’s aid. Remington was shot in the lung, head, hip and shoulder but escaped life-threatening injuries, Padula said. 
 
 Church members and friends hailed his survival as the work of God. 
 
 “One of the bullets tried to enter the brain but stopped at the skull. … He is and will continue to be alive and serving God!” Roger Crigger said in an update on social media. 
 
 May Traverso, who has attended Altar Church since 2011, described Remington as “tirelessly devoted, self-sacrificing, loving.” 
 
 “He did not deserve this,” Traverso said, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t get this.” 
 
 Remington is director of Good Samaritan Rehabilitation, which provides drug and alcohol treatment. The faith-based approach aims to instill a sense of purpose, identity and confidence in people, and he believes recovering addicts benefit from spending time with Christian mentors. He and his family have invited addicts to live with them over the years. 
 
 “He lives for God and for everybody else. He is the most selfless man I have ever met in my life,” Padula said. “When I was struggling, when I was using drugs still, he just loved the daylights out of me and helped me, as he has done for 1,700 people now who have graduated our program.” 
 
 His daughter, Amanda Padula, said she was addicted to opiates for seven years before she went through Remington’s recovery program in 2010. “He showed Christ’s love to me and changed my life radically,” she said. 
 
 Deborah Young said she was addicted to heroin, opiates and alcohol before she went through the program in 2014. 
 
 “When I was in my darkest time he was the one who pulled me out,” Young said. “I love him like he’s my father.” 
 
 Coeur d’Alene Assembly Church opened its doors Sunday evening for church members and others in the community to gather for prayer. Remington’s wife, Cindy, and their daughter and three sons were at the hospital with him, John Padula said.
– The attempted murder of a pastor in Idaho after his Sunday sermon is drawing extra attention because the pastor had publicly prayed with Ted Cruz only the day before. But whether there's any connection remains iffy, reports the Spokesman Review. The pastor, Tim Remington of Coeur d'Alene, works with addicts and had been threatened previously by some of those same addicts, notes the newspaper. Police on Monday identified a 30-year-old former Marine, Kyle Odom, as the suspect, and he remains at large. The 55-year-old Remington was ambushed Sunday in the parking lot of his church. The gunman shot him as many as six times at close range, including in the head, but, incredibly, Remington is expected to make a full recovery. The gunman "stood pretty professional as he was shooting," says another pastor at Altar Church. On Saturday, Remington had prayed with Cruz at a campaign rally and gave the invocation at the event. "Our prayers are with Pastor Tim," a campaign spokeswoman tells NBC News. Meanwhile, a Facebook post by a church member is getting wide circulation: "One of the bullets TRIED to enter the brain but stopped at the skull, one of the bullets busted his hip, one fractured his shoulder pretty bad, but he is and will continue to be ALIVE AND SERVING GOD! Just like we all KNEW he would!" Remington and his wife moved to Coeur d'Alene after working in street ministry in California and running a coffeehouse there, according to the church website. Security footage shows that Odom attended the Sunday sermon. Police say he fled the scene in a silver Honda Accord and should be considered "armed and dangerous."