Memphis pastor says thieves stole bathroom during church burglary

MEMPHIS, Tennessee. (A LOT) — A pastor said he walked into his South Memphis church Sunday morning to find the building in shambles: the side door had been ripped out, speakers in the sanctuary had been removed from the wall and his office had been ransacked. Even the toilet was missing.

“They stole everything that wasn’t vetted,” Pastor Gregory Harris of Greater New Hope Baptist Church told Nexstar’s WREG.

“The thing that struck me the most was when I walked into my office I heard the water running and there was no toilet,” Harris said. “They took the entire bathroom.”

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He said thieves searched every inch of the building, including a crayon box left for the children.

“They went through all the papers, they went through everything, they emptied the lockers, they threw everything on the floor,” Harris said.

The pastor told WREG he felt “violated.”

“This is a huge robbery,” he said. “That’s a lot of murder. There’s so much going on. “People are just trying to be opportunistic, and today they took that opportunity and destroyed the house of God.”

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Despite the chaos left behind, church services continued normally, he said.

“I was going to say we couldn’t serve,” Harris said. “We weren’t going to do anything but that would have given them the victory.”

He gives the following message to those responsible: “You may gain a momentary financial gain, but in the end, your actions will come back to haunt you later.”

Memphis police said they are investigating. No further details were disclosed.

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