The Evangelical Lutheran Church, located at the corner of 5th and Harrison Streets in Black River Falls, was broken into on September 15. The ELC Lutheran church is run by pastors Eric and Ramie Bakken.

 The Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC) is the place of worship for many people throughout Black River Falls. The church offers choirs for every age group, Sunday School for kids up to eighth grade, confirmation, bible studies, handbell choir, and many other things for people to get involved throughout the church,

 “Our custodian, Al discovered that there was a break-in on Wednesday September 15th,” said Eric Bakken.

 One of the things that led that tipped the custodian off was a broken window.

 “They broke out one of the windows, and they destroyed the cabinet that our safe is in,” said Bakken.

The person who committed the crime was aiming towards stealing the safe, but they were unsuccessful in doing so.

 One of the scariest things about the break-in is that the pastor thinks that the person(s) who committed the crime were hiding in the church when they locked up.

 “We think they were probably already in the building [when we locked up],” said Bakken.

 There was a window broken, but the pastor said that the broken glass would have been too sharp for a 10 foot fall tthe ground, so the person committing the crime broke the window to make it look like they entered through it.

 Stealing from a church seems like a very unlikely place to steal from. “At this time, were not aware that anything has been taken from the church, except for a false sense of security,” said Bakken.

 Stealing from a church seems like a very risky, and bad thing to do. The pastor thinks someone stole from the church for certain reasons.

“Probably desperation, difficult times, ease of access, opportunity,” said Bakken.

 The Evangelical Lutheran Church isn’t the only place that has been broken into.

 “The night before the break-in at our church, Third Street School was broken into and the safe was stolen, and there was a Baptist church in Eau Claire was broken into,” said Bakken.

 The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the place of worship for many people in Black River Falls, and the church tries to keep a good reputation for being a nice, clean, safe, and family-friendly Lutheran church. The church would like to assure anyone and everyone that things are okay at this time.

 If anyone has any information pertaining to the break-in’s at Third Street School, Evangelical Lutheran Church, or the Baptist church in Eau Claire please contact the police station, and/or Eric and Ramie Bakken.