A man who previously set a Kansas City church on fire was sentenced to seven more years in prison last Thursday for illegally possessing a firearm as a felon. 

Christopher A. Durant walked through Independence, Missouri, firing a gun into the air at 2 a.m. on May 13, 2025, less than two months after he was released from prison. Durant was incarcerated for over five years after setting a church building, Beyond Thee Four Walls Ministries, on fire in August 2020. 

In the church burning, he threw rocks at the church and lit objects on fire before placing them inside the building through broken windows and a mail slot. 

He returned to the church again about 30 minutes later to put another ignited object and what officers suspect was an incendiary liquid through the broken window. Firefighters arrived less than two hours later to tend to the “heavy fire.” 

Durant was federally convicted of arson in 2021 and, as a felon, he was prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm. He pled guilty to illegal possession of a firearm on Aug. 7, 2025 and will serve five years in prison without parole, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.