{"id":16410,"date":"2024-02-13T10:59:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T15:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=16410"},"modified":"2024-02-13T13:54:09","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T18:54:09","slug":"a-tennessee-churchs-incredible-response-to-devastating-vandalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2024\/02\/a-tennessee-churchs-incredible-response-to-devastating-vandalism.html","title":{"rendered":"A Tennessee Church&#8217;s Incredible Response to Devastating Vandalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16422\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16422\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2024\/02\/church-destroyed-02_credit-WSMV-4-Nashville-YouTube-Luna-Lane-Church-of-Christ-facebook.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16422\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2024\/02\/church-destroyed-02_credit-WSMV-4-Nashville-YouTube-Luna-Lane-Church-of-Christ-facebook.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16422\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">WSMV 4 Nashville \/ YouTube | Inset: Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Tennessee church that was forced to cancel Sunday services due to widespread vandalism is responding with grace, offering kindness, prayers, and love to those responsible. Elders with Luna Lane Church of Christ\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkrn.com\/news\/local-news\/hendersonville-church-vandalized-leaders-call-for-forgiveness\/\">told WKRN-TV<\/a>\u00a0they believe extensive damage to the church unfolded on a Thursday or Friday, with pews tipped over, TVs ripped off walls, shattered glass strewn about, fire extinguishing spray deployed, and other unfortunate acts of vandalism.<\/p>\n<p>The church wrote in a Facebook post, \u201cServices for today at Luna Lane Church have been canceled. Our building was vandalized this past week. We are working to reopen the building as soon as possible. Please keep us in your prayers.\u201d Pastor Nick Rapheal succinctly summarized the chaos during\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsmv.com\/2024\/02\/05\/its-gigantic-mess-hendersonville-police-investigating-vandalism-luna-lane-church-christ\/\">an interview<\/a>\u00a0with WSMV-TV by saying, \u201cIt\u2019s a gigantic mess.\u201d However, despite all of the debris and widespread damage, the preacher said something surprising stood out to him and other congregants: the Bibles were intact.<\/p>\n<p>Rapheal said, \u201cNobody touched any of those Bibles. It touched everything else. But they didn\u2019t touch the Bibles. I don\u2019t know what that means; you have to figure it out for yourself. But it\u2019s an interesting fact.\u201d Despite a truly disheartening situation, church officials are responding in a Gospel-centered way. Not only are they openly praying for those responsible, but they\u2019ve forgiven and are even welcoming them to attend the house of worship.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1srs02Upzhs?si=7NjmMC-388onw0t3\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Danny Parrish, a church elder,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkrn.com\/news\/local-news\/hendersonville-church-vandalized-leaders-call-for-forgiveness\/\">told WKRN-TV<\/a>, \u201cWe are a loving church. We don\u2019t have a lot to offer, but we do have a lot of love, and love will cover a lot of stuff. If it was a crime, they would have stole something, but they didn\u2019t steal anything. They just destroyed it. For why, I don\u2019t know.\u201d Mark Brown, another elder, shared a profoundly compassionate message for those responsible, pondering what must be unfolding in their hearts for them to take such drastic action. He said, \u201cAt a deeper level, what really gets to our heart is that this individual or individuals obviously have something inside them that\u2019s hurting. We can\u2019t possibly guess what their motives were, but we know that they need our prayers, and we all pray for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rapheal said the church, while realizing a punishment might be necessary, is truly a \u201cvery forgiving group.\u201d According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fox17.com\/news\/local\/church-in-hendersonville-ransacked-services-put-on-hold\">WZTV-TV<\/a>, Luna Lane Church of Christ hopes to reopen soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Tennessee church that was forced to cancel Sunday services due to widespread vandalism is responding with grace, offering kindness, prayers, and love to those responsible. Elders with Luna Lane Church of Christ\u00a0told WKRN-TV\u00a0they believe extensive damage to the church unfolded on a Thursday or Friday, with pews tipped over, TVs ripped off walls, shattered&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":16422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[742,741,4,12,821],"tags":[2295,2298],"class_list":["post-16410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-faith","category-inspiring-messages","category-inspiring-people","category-miracle","tag-luna-lane-church-of-christ","tag-vandalism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Tennessee Church&#039;s Incredible Response to Devastating Vandalism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Tennessee church 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