A pastor in Akron, Ohio, has a sobering message for the thieves who allegedly stole his church’s air conditioning unit.
Three weeks ago, Pastor Gus Brown of Akron Alliance Fellowship Church on Diagonal Road said he noticed something was missing when he drove up to the church; the congregation’s recently purchased air conditioning unit was gone.
“It was a brand new unit that we had just put in. We hadn’t even made the first payment on it yet, it had only been in a few days,” Brown told reporters.
The new unit reportedly cost the church about $3,500.
Brown immediately called the police once he realized what had happened.
“They cut the wires nicely, they cut the tubing with a tubing cutter. They had to know what they were doing. It had to be at least two, because one person would not have been able to pick it up,” he said.
The pastor then decided to use the church sign to send a message directly to the thieves.
“Whoever stole our AC unit – Keep it. ‘Its hot where your going,’” the sign read:
Brown added that although he is saddened by the loss, he hopes those who took the brand new unit will turn their lives around and come visit the church in the near future.
The pastor commented, “You are wrong and staying on this path will only get you one place. And we don’t want you to go there. Our desire is to even see him at our church one day.”
“You need to turn around. You need to repent,” he continued. “You need to recognize that you’re hurting yourself because you’re not going to wind up just before a judge here on earth, but you’re going to wind up before the Judge of judges and he’ll hold you accountable.”
Even though temperatures will be hot this weekend, the church still plans to have Bible study and regular services. Reports said the congregation also plans to take up a special offering this Sunday to raise money for another air conditioning unit.