Pastor of the New Hope Community Church of the Nazarene (NHCCN) had a surprise at the church's back door this morning.

Tim Enns, Senior Pastor at NHCCN for eight years, says someone had set a fire on the exterior wall of the church last night, but they never received a call.

"I showed up this morning - we actually did not get a call last night, " says Enns. "I came this morning and found the charred remains of our garbage cans and recycling can. We have no place to put our bins on the inside of the building and we don't have a gated yard or anything like that.

"It looks like they used an accelerant and blackened the whole side of the building, plus there was smoke inside."

The damage occurred mainly on the exterior of the building, but repairs will obviously need to be made including a new door and windows.

Enns is at peace about the situation and is thankful for insurance. He says, "We're okay that way," and "I'm not super worried about it - just a random thing. I have seen it before."

The Church is on Henderson Highway and has not seen much damage prior to this event.

Enns says, "We've never really had anything happen to our building other than the odd graffiti or anything like that.

"Just in the neighbourhood, there has [sic] been quite a few reports of garage fires throughout the city as well. It's summertime and the firemen do say that they get these calls off and on. It happens and people are bored, you know."