California pastor defends church burglary suspects, says ‘God was very kind and protected me’

A California pastor with a martial arts background tells Fox News Digital that “God was very kind and protected me” as he defended an alleged burglar at his church on Thanksgiving Day.

Pastor Nick Neves of the First Family Church in Antiochia said on Friday the incident started yesterday morning when he came to the church to check the alarm and the open door.

“When I entered the building, the suspect was coming out with a lot of our goods. hang around the parking lot for about 15 minutes until the police come,” Neves told Fox News Digital.

“He was angry and I did everything possible to calm him down without doing anything to him,” he continued. “We are an evangelical church that wants to point people to the Lord and do good in our community and when someone breaks windows and steals your things, it is difficult to help people.”

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Neves also said that “God was very kind and protected me from many dangers there.”

“I hope this boy can think about his crimes and his sins and I hope he repents,” he added.

The Antioch Police Department says the ax used by the suspect to break the church window was found at the scene.

“I practice jujitsu and I also do a little kickboxing training so I know how to defend myself,” Neves told Fox News Digital.

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The ax the Antioch Police Department says was used to break into the First Family Church on Thursday morning. (Antioch Police Department)

“You train for years and years and you don’t really need to use it if you’re a peace person – you’re not trying to get into trouble with anyone, but it’s there if you need it and, thankfully, this guy who was trying to hurt me didn’t have the training I had, so I was able to stop his attack,” he added.

The Antioch Police Department said, “When the criminal saw his bad deeds discovered he decided to fight the pastor instead of repenting.”

The window the suspect used to break into First Family Church in Antioch, Calif., according to the Antioch Police Department. (Antioch Police Department)

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“He didn’t know that the pastor would win this battle between good and evil and held the suspect down until the APD arrived and put the suspect in custody,” said the police. “We are thankful today that the pastor was not injured when this incident happened and we hope that as we have highlighted the amazing members of the community recently, we can change the crime in our city.”