Pastor after break-in: ‘We live in a fallen world’
A pastor in Dayton whose church was burglarized and vandalized Monday says he’s hurt, but he isn’t surprised.
Pastor Kenneth Moss at The Potter’s House-Dayton International Ministries, 2050 Germantown St., said it appears thieves forced their way into the church to look for money. He said it doesn’t look like they were able to take anything, but they did vandalize an office.
“One thing that I have come to know being part of the Kingdom of God is that we live in a fallen world,” Moss said. “People are desperate, addicted and troubled, and desperate people do desperate things, and often times it’s without thought.”
A Dayton police report says officers were dispatched to the church at around 1:30 p.m. Monday. It appears a locked door was forced open.
The pastor said this isn’t the first time his church has been broken into, which is frustrating to him because the church is open to anyone and helps people in need. He said his church is focused on helping the sick or hungry and provides a place for community gatherings.
Moss said as a church and a pastor, he and the church’s leadership must weigh the difficult balance between seeking justice and offering forgiveness.
“We’re not surprised because we understand hurting people hurt people. We have to address it and do that through love, but we have to hold people accountable,” Moss said. “Sometimes holding people accountable is the best thing you can do for them.”
“One of the things our leadership has discussed is a lot of times the people doing these things are the people that you know,” he said. “So we have discussed: how do we properly address them but still love them as the church?”
Moss said the church invests in security features that he believes may have scared off the burglars before they were able to get anything of value.
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