A pastor in Illinois was arrested after he broke into a rival church.
Pastor David Utt, 39, is the minister of the New Hope Community Church in Canton, Illinois.
On July 18, a police patrol saw a minivan parked at the First Church of the Nazarene. The police saw an open door and found Utt using tools to break into the church's safe, according to the Journal Star.
He was arrested and charged with burglary, criminal damage to property over $300 and possession of burglary tools. He was released from Fulton County Jail on a bail.
"He needed money because he was behind on his church's rent," Canton Police Sgt. Josh Wages told the newspaper.
Utt was ordained as an elder at the Northwest Illinois District of the Church of the Nazarene in 2012.
Last year, Utt launched the New Hope Community Church and held services at a Cantol hotel.
"There's 10,000 people in Canton that don't go to church; the population is 15,000. Ten years ago, the stats were the same. We're not making the impact we need. We're all brothers and sisters in Christ. We can have as many churches as it takes to make a dent in that number," he told WEEK-TV.
After the church was ousted from the hotel, Utt started holding services at a city park. Last October, the church started renting the Garden Theatre, a closed movie house.
Last November, a GoFundMe page was set up by the church to seek $20,000 for down payment to purchase the theater but it was only able to raise $140 in eight months.
Canton residents were surprised at Utt's arrest.
"It's crazy. Everybody's doing crazy things these days and it blows my mind," Trisha Fisher told WEEK-TV.
Cody Akers described it as "odd" that a pastor would break into another church. I feel like that's kind of against the whole religion thing," said Akers.
A member of the First Church of Nazarene could not believe the news.
"It was shocking and I read it and my wife, she couldn't hardly believe it. I mean he broke into the back of the church?" said Wayne Wheeler.
Denisha Evans, a member of the New Hope Community Church, said, "He just seemed like a really nice guy, always happy. It didn't show what he was going through, he must have been going through something."
