Three people were shot to death and six were wounded in Colorado on Sunday in two church-related shootings in the US Christian heartland.

A gunman — described by an eyewitness as dressed in black, wearing combat boots and holding an assault rifle and at least one handgun — wounded four people when he opened fire in the parking lot of the vast New Life evangelical church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, after Sunday services, police said.

A New Life Church security guard shot and killed the gunman before police arrived on the scene, Colorado Springs police chief Richard Myers told a press conference.

Police did not identify the gunman. There were about 7,000 people in the building when shooting erupted, a pastor said.

In an earlier incident, 70 miles away, a man entered a Christian missionary training centre in the Denver suburb of Arvada with a handgun and killed two young missionaries and wounded two others, police said. The Arvada gunman, also dressed in dark clothing, fled on foot in the snow.

Police in the two cities said they were sharing information, but declined to say whether they thought the attacks were related. There was no indication of motive in either case. However, a spokesman for the Arvada missionary group said the organisation had an office on the Colorado Springs campus of the New Life church.

Myers said the police had found several suspicious devices at the New Life church and were still searching campus buildings five hours after the shooting. He declined to elaborate.

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