A beloved youth minister from a local church has died of complications from the flu.

Allison Williams, 36, of Seymour, who had worked at Reddington Christian Church since 2008, passed away Monday at Schneck Medical Center in Seymour.

Her mother, Lisa Williams of Knoxville, Tennessee, posted on social media that Allison contracted the flu after attending the Tennessee Christian Teen Convention from Jan. 10 to 12 and never recovered from the illness, leading to sepsis.

The convention was one she participated in every year.

“When she came home, she wasn’t feeling well,” said Reddington Christian Senior Pastor Scott Brown. “A couple of days after being home, she had gone back to the doctor for the second time, and they said she had the Type A flu.”

Allison had received a flu shot this season, Brown said.

“She told me yesterday, ‘I don’t even know why I got a flu shot. It didn’t do me any good,’” he said.

Brown and several other church members continued to check on her throughout the week.

“On Saturday, my wife and I brought out some medication for her, some Gatorade and things she needed,” Brown said. “Then I checked her again on Sunday.”

At 10:30 a.m. Monday, Brown visited her at home again and noticed she was worse.

“I said, ‘Allison, you need to let me take you to the ER,’ but she didn’t want to go,” he said.

He told her he would return at noon, at which time she agreed to go to the hospital, he said.

She was so sick, she couldn’t walk to the car without Brown’s help.

“I got her to the car, took her directly to the Seymour hospital and we weren’t there three minutes and she went into cardiac arrest,” Brown said. “With going septic, that can happen so quickly, and the damage is done. The doctor said even if we had brought her in earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

Brown said he has always thought about the flu in terms of statistics until now.

“You always hear about people dying of the flu, but you never really know anybody,” he said. “And all of a sudden, it happened here.”

Allison was loved by many and had a major impact on youth in the church and community.

“She always had a smile on her face, and she was a very giving person,” Brown said. “She was a giver of gifts and a very loving person to both kids and adults.”

Brown said it was rare for a youth minister to stay at one church as long as Williams did.

“She had been here 11 years, which is really unheard of because nationally, youth ministers usually only stay a couple of years,” he said.

He described Allison as a person of “very deep faith.”

“She was raised with this authentic faith,” he said. “That was taught to her by her mom and dad.”

Her love of children of all ages made her perfect for the job.

“I have never, in all my years, worked with a youth minister that genuinely loved kids the way she did,” Brown said.

But the feeling between the youth and Williams was mutual, he said.

“The kids had this profound respect for her,” he said. “She had this ability to command a room of teenagers and to get their attention and keep them in line. They loved her.”

That love was not unlike a child’s love for their parents, he said.

“She was almost like a motherly type figure,” he said. “She was very protective of the kids. She often referred to the kids as ‘my kids.’ That’s how she approached these kids. It didn’t matter what their age, whether it was the babies all the way up to those who had graduated through her program. They were still her kids.”

Now, her family and church must go through a time of healing, Brown said.

“Our biggest concern as a church right now is the youth,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to meet their needs right now because we’re very concerned about the kids.”

Reddington Christian Church has always had a very vibrant youth program, and it had grown even more under Allison’s leadership, he said.

“She just expanded that in the time she was with us,” he said. “She was by far the best youth minister I have ever worked with. She was more than my co-worker. She and I were friends. Our friendship was always the foundation of what we did.”

The church opened from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday to allow for personal prayer and reflection.

“This will also be a time for conversation and encouragement during this very difficult time,” Brown said. “We will get through this together. The joy of the Lord is our strength.”