The beginning of 2026 has been incredibly full. Today I am writing about the community that has had the greatest impact on me and how I see the world. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are where I’ve called home for more years than any other place on earth. Even though I live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota now, I expect I will be writing a lot about Minneapolis and St. Paul this year.
I was in Minnesota on Saturday, January 24th for my Dad’s 86th birthday. The party had been in the works for weeks. So when I received the invitation to join in a mass clergy event on the Thursday and Friday before the birthday party it wasn’t a big stretch to think about joining in with colleagues from across the country. Still, it did trigger a conversation with Aimée about what is mine to do in this season of turmoil. One of the event organizers who has roots in South Dakota where we now live posted this: “…Not everything needs your hands, your voice, or your nervous system at the same time. If you can, choose one thing and do it well…”
Part of my thinking for why this is mine to do goes back to something the musician Rich Mullins once said in a radio interview in the 1990s. Rich was talking about why he’s working as a music teacher in the Navajo Nation. That he chose to move to Arizona because as a single person without children he could move and engage a new culture more than a person with family commitments. Thinking about my friends and colleagues who have young children at home in the Twin Cities (and lots of other places) and are still standing up in ways that put either their bodies or their family’s financial well-being (or both) at risk, I know that I am in a place today where I can do more. And my doing more still won’t risk as much as these friends who still live and work where Aimée and I used to live and work.
I also happen to agree with the idea that what our federal government is doing in Minnesota goes against both our constitution and my faith traditions call to love and care for my neighbor. So I decided to register for the event on January 19th and early on the morning of Thursday, January 22nd I drove from Sioux Falls to Minneapolis to take part in a day long training event followed by organized protests and the march on Friday, January 23rd.
One of the organizers of these events is M.A.R.C.H. MINNESOTA (Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing). These two posts from their Instagram are a good primer for what this organization is about:
This is, in many ways, singing as re-membering. And if you know me, then you might agree that I’ve both unknowingly and knowingly been preparing for this for much of my life. On Friday, January 23rd there were multiple actions in which clergy participated and sang. In the morning, while 100 clergy were being arrested for protesting at the airport, I was at a local congregation hearing from community organizers about how they keep watch block by block. Their repeated descriptions of their teamwork included being hyper-local, egalitarian, and without a central command. I was genuinely inspired by their care for one another and their community. These were not “paid protesters”. That terminology better describes the ICE agents who have been paid large signing bonuses to ignore the constitution and up-end the rule of law.
At one point in the Question and Answer portion of the morning our hosts let us know that the building was on “lock-down”. We were instructed to stay where we were because violence had come to some community members by ICE agents close to the church building and these community members were receiving medical attention in the building. Days later I found out what was going on outside the walls of the church from the following reporting:
Being delayed at the congregation while medical care was given on that Friday morning resulted in a couple expressions of solidarity that I want to lift up briefly. First, since we didn’t know how long we would be delayed in the church building, congregation members quickly organized a soup luncheon for 100+ of us who were present! It was really pretty spectacular and speaks to the “neighborism” that is occurring all across the city.
Neighborism is described by Adam Serwer in The Atlantic article from Jan. 27 titled Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong:
If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.
And in Americans Love Their Neighbors (in The Atlantic on Jan. 31), Julie Beck writes, “Statistics say that Americans are forgetting how to be neighborly. The recent actions of the people of Minnesota suggest otherwise… These are people unwilling to accept their neighbors being dragged from their homes and cars, pepper-sprayed in the face, and separated from their children. They have responded to federal agents’ cruelty and brutality with heroic care.”
There are multiple ways to read these full articles. I access them either through Apple News or my subscription to The Atlantic Magazine, but you can also start a free trial to access a couple stories each month. In the months to come this is one of the resources I will likely be referencing quite a bit, so I hope you’ll consider supporting this good journalism.
One of the other good sources for accurate information coming out of Minnesota is Minnesota Public Radio. The weekday show Minnesota Now is especially good and delivered as a podcast after the live broadcast. The Jan. 29 episode is especially informative in its interview with Berger Montague attorney Michelle Drake and the disturbing “Operation PARRIS” designed to arrest and detain lawfully resettled refugees. Here’s where to find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The second expression of solidarity that morning came as a request from the event organizers. To calmly move us from the church to downtown we were asked to get into small groups for carpooling. I had my car parked around the corner and three other pastors who flew in joined me: Meagan from Missouri, Megan from North Carolina, Joel from North Carolina, and me… only Me(a)gans and Joels allowed!
Our next stop was a singing protest at the Target store on Nicollet Ave.
The main message at Target was that we want the company to be supportive of all families including their employees and citizens who have been targeted by ICE for simply being a Target employee of color. Within a few days Target and 60 other Minnesota based companies called for a deescalation of tensions.
And after an hour of singing and speeches at Target we joined the thousands marching outside.
We finally returned to my car to warm up and get these new friends to where they were staying and to the airport. It was an experience that left me both troubled and grateful to find common cause with many deeply rooted siblings. The next day, as my family was preparing for my Father’s birthday celebration, Alex Pretti was murdered by masked ICE agents not far from where I’d walked the day before. I returned home and was thankful to engage in a service of prayer and lament on Monday, January 26 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls. There were very few open seats at this candle light service and it was good to not be alone with my troubled spirit.
I’ll end this post with a thought and a video. It’s always the right time to be a good neighbor. Here’s a brief video from the service of prayer and lament set to my Advent chorus: What is this armor of light, if not the body of Christ.
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