A church in South Memphis, Tennessee, was burglarized over the weekend, with thieves taking just about everything they could get their hands on—including the church’s toilet. Nevertheless, Pastor Gregory Harris of Greater New Hope Baptist Church is encouraging his congregation to stay on mission.
On Sunday (Nov. 10), Harris arrived at the church to discover the side door had been ripped off of the hinge and that the church had been ransacked.
“They stole everything that was not nailed down,” Harris told WREG.
The thieves removed the speakers from the walls of the sanctuary and raided the pastor’s office.
“The thing that got me the most was when I walked in my office, I could hear water running and the toilet was gone,” Harris said. “They took the whole toilet.”
The thieves apparently ripped the toilet out haphazardly, causing water to saturate the carpeting in two adjacent rooms. Harris said that the thieves searched every inch of the building, looking for items to take, even turning over a box where crayons are kept for the children of the church.
“You feel violated,” Harris said. “It’s so much robbing. It’s so much killing. So much going on. People are just trying to be opportunists, and today they took an opportunity to vandalize God’s house.”
Nevertheless, Harris said that the burglary isn’t going to stop the church from continuing to hold services.
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“I was going to say we weren’t going to have service,” Harris said. “We weren’t going to do nothing. But that would be giving them the victory.”
