Tennessee church seeks justice after elderly member is robbed during prayer
When Pastor Larry D. Robertson got up to address his congregants at a Wednesday evening prayer and Bible study meeting nearly two weeks ago, he was mad.
“I ask your forgiveness for being a few minutes late,” Robertson, the senior pastor of Hilldale Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, said as he spoke to the congregation, which can be seen in a video posted on YouTube. “We’ve had an issue and I am, I’m just gonna tell you right now, I’m mad. I’m ticked. I’m a pretty even keel guy, so I don’t break things when I’m mad. I don’t scream, cuss, anything like that, but I’m very angry.”
Robertson then recounted how two African American women had arrived early at the diverse but predominantly white church to attend their 6:30 p.m. service on Feb. 9 but ended up robbing a 78-year-old congregant as she prayed for them.
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“We had a couple of women who came at about 5:40 and said they thought the service started at 6 p.m. and I directed them in this direction (the sanctuary),” Robertson said. “One of our ladies came early and was here. And long story short, they stole, they robbed her.”
The robbery, which was caught on the church’s security cameras and posted on YouTube, shows one of the young women asking the elderly member for prayer. As soon as she engaged the church member, the accomplice began rifling through the elderly woman’s purse.
“While they had their eyes closed and their heads bowed, the other girl got into our church member’s purse and … got credit cards, cash, everything. And closed it back up. And amazingly that’s when the prayer finished,” Robertson recalled.
“And then when this church member picked her wallet up, she thought that just feels lighter. Looked in it and by this time, the girls were gone. Vengeance is mine. I will repay sayeth the Lord,” Robertson declared, pointing to the ceiling. “The Lord knows who they are and where they are.”
Last Thursday, the Clarksville Police Department, which is now seeking the public’s help in identifying the suspected robbers, said in a statement posted on Facebook that there were four females working together at Hilldale Baptist Church. Three of them were recorded leaving a Sam's Club after they used the church member’s credit card.
As Robertson ponders how to ultimately respond to the women who committed a crime against his congregation, he's offering the power of prayer and a chance to call them to repentance. But he also believes they must pay the earthly costs once they're caught.
“The Lord is a God of justice and righteousness. And we believe in that," Robertson said in an interview with The Christian Post on Monday. "And we support the law and the judicial system that prosecutes crime. Our government has the authority of God, to act on our behalf to keep order in society. And we believe that the law should do what the law is supposed to do. And that would be to find these criminals and to prosecute them.”
“We believe that is just. So the law should be what the law does, but the church should always do what the church does. And we've been called to preach the Gospel to all creation. Our message is a message of hope. And our desire would be that these girls would, even in prosecution, would see the error of their ways and repent of sin, not because they got caught, but because they truly understand that they have sinned against God,” he added.
Robertson, who has been at the church for about 20 years, said it was the most brazen of a handful of robberies to have happened at the church under his watch, and his congregation is still in shock.
“Among the congregation, everybody's still in a spirit of shock, you know. And, sadly, … I think people are going to be suspicious for a while if a stranger approaches them and asks for something so personal as prayer,” Robertson explained.
“I've said on a number of occasions since (the robbery) that money was the least of things that this lady lost, she lost a certain innocence. And she lost a certain trust. And so I think that's going to be shared among other church members as well,” he added.
The Tennessee pastor explained that the church has a very “robust” security system, including cameras and volunteers with law enforcement experience, but no one was monitoring the security cameras almost one hour before the start of the Wednesday evening service. The security team is usually in place about 30 minutes before service begins, Robertson said.
“These girls, I think, knew what they were doing. And some of our church members had seen them before, which makes me think maybe they had come and had … they knew what they were doing and, unfortunately, churches can be easy targets,” he added.
He explained that the first thing that the women did when they got to the church was ask to see him, and he obliged because he wanted them to feel welcome and hoped that they would stay for the service.
“They arrived and said they were visiting our church and wanted to meet the pastor. ... I know enough about the African American church culture to know that the pastor is a very central figure. And so I didn't think twice about them saying we're visiting your church we wanted to meet you,” Robertson said.
“I'm thinking they're operating within a certain faith tradition. They wanted to meet the pastor. You know, if I gave them bad vibes they might not stay. So I didn't think anything bad about it. I thought that they were truly there to check us out,” he continued. “We have people, you know [of] all skin tones in our church. ... We're not as diverse as we hoped that we were, but we have a certain diversity. I mean, I just didn't think anything about the fact that they wanted to meet me and they were there for the worship service.”
