Resources for Right Now
On Saturday, January 24th, after the murder of Alex Pretti, my phone lit up with coordinating efforts. As the sun went down, we met on the main corners of each neighborhood, talking quietly, feeding bonfires to keep the youngest and eldest in the crowd warm. There was some singing, but we struggled, our broken hearts losing the threads of second verses. We didn’t quite know when to leave or what to do next. I recognized then how keenly our torn-apart city (and nation) needs the best of our faith practices: ways to come together to speak into our shared brokenness and direct our selves and community for action in service to the neighbor.
Resources for Right Now is a living resource crafted amid the January 2026 escalation of violent immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In this collection, we hope to equip the church’s leaders with diverse ways to speak into this moment, in sermon prompts, short illustrative stories, songs new and old, and liturgy and prayers.
In addition, we’re assembling a short vigil for immediate use in the aftermath of an abduction or murder by immigration enforcement. This vigil will draw on biblical imagery and is planned with Christian spaces in mind, but any or all of it is open for adaptation as your community may be in need.
It is out of our deep love for our city and our hope in God’s work towards justice that we offer this collection of resources entirely free of charge. If anything we offer is of benefit to you or your congregation, we invite you to make a financial contribution to the Immigration Justice fund at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Holy Trinity and its leaders are longtime collaborators in Church Anew work, and they have committed to distributing their fund directly to those in need, especially for rent assistance and legal fees.
Stay safe.
Emmy Kegler, Blog Editor
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Notes on the text and optional liturgical elements including opening prayers, prayer petitions, and sending blessings.
February 15, Transfiguration -
These vignettes are collected as small stories that may introduce or otherwise enhance a sermon.
Beyond Business As Usual: Post Modern Times
Modern Times is your classic hippie cafe, staffed by folks in hoodies slinging greasy potato hashes and gluten-free muffins. Like most restaurants, their financials have been on a knife’s edge since COVID, and “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis had made their December and January even more sparse.
Modern Times is also only a few blocks from the site where Renee Good was killed.
This January, owner of fifteen years Dylan Alverson announced that after conversation with staff, Modern Times would now become Post Modern Times. Instead of a restaurant with paying customers and paid staff, they would be serving food for free, accepting only donations, and volunteering any time worked.
The message was simple: at potentially great personal cost, they were going to stop producing anything that could be taxed, refusing to contribute to the federal funds that pay for the presence of immigration agents in their city.
Alverson has openly stated that it may be the end of the cafe. He seems unshaken in his resolve: “I am inspired by the ways our community has grown together, our hearts breaking open, to give and receive care in all the ways we can.”
Sources: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/28/modern-times-diner-moves-to-donation-based-model-during-ice-operations, instagram.com/moderntimescafempls
Changing Your Mind: Reverend Rob Schenck
Among fifty thousand marchers on Friday, January 23rd who took to Minneapolis streets in negative twenty degree temperatures were hundreds of clergy. One of those pastors was Reverend Rob Schenck. You may recognize him from his thirty-five years advocating the cause of the religious right. He sought to eliminate reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ protections both through federal policies like the Defense of Marriage Act and in befriending and influencing lower-level judges who might eventually become Supreme Court justices.
After decades of success, Reverend Schenck suddenly began to have a change of heart. In studying the practices of faith before and during Nazi Germany, he began to see the same kinds of characteristics he saw in American Christianity and its desire to control the country’s politics and policies. He has since left his political organizations and recanted a majority of his public stances, at personal cost to himself; he has recounted driving Ubers to make money. He is working through writing and public advocacy to repair the harm he has done.
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Music to Learn & Teach
SATB choral anthem, “Christ, Surround Them,” arranged by Becky Sun.
Arranger’s notes: “Christ, Surround Them” is based on the lyrics of “O Christ, Surround Me”, a lorica — prayer of protection from the Irish monastic tradition — by progressive music maker Richard Bruxvoort Colligan. I wrote this as my city, Minneapolis, was being traumatized by the cruel, unconstitutional acts of anti-immigration federal force.
“Your Peace Will Make Us One,” by Audrey Assad, to the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
You are speaking truth to power, You are laying down our swords
Replanting every vineyard 'til a brand new wine is poured
Your peace will make us one
[Chorus]
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Your peace will make us one
I've seen You in our home fires burning with a quiet light
You are mothering and feeding in the wee hours of the night
Your gentle love is patient, You will never fade or tire
Your peace will make us one [Chorus]
In the beauty of the lilies, You were born across the sea
With a glory in Your bosom that is still transfiguring
Dismantling our empires 'til each one of us is free
Your peace will make us one [Chorus]
Songs for Public Gatherings
In public groups – protests, vigils, spontaneous gatherings – there can be a sense of needing to “do something” without knowing what that “something” might be. Faith leaders can offer a unique gift here, even without the space being explicitly religious: we are a people used to singing together. Some songs that may fit the moment:
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Words of Institution
by Rev. Andrea Roske-MetcalfeOn the night of his arrest
on trumped up charges, on no charges at all, on the whims of a fragile king,
Jesus gathered his beloveds around a table.
They hadn’t known each other all that long.
They weren’t family; not most of them, anyway.
But they had seen some stuff together,
seen one another through some stuff together,
and that changes people.Everyone was on edge. Their shoulders were tight.
All of Jerusalem was on edge. The whole city felt tighter than a bow string.
No one could remember the last time they had slept well.On that night Jesus took bread.
He gave thanks for the simple miracle of it
And he shared it with his beloveds.
“This is my body,” he told them.
“Maybe I’ll be here with you tomorrow and maybe I won’t,
But this will be my body — here with you — forever and always.
A steady thing even when nothing else feels steady at all.”“Eat this,” he said, “and remember me.”
When they had finished their supper he took the cup.
“This cup is my blood,” he told them.
“It’s full of promises for life and forgiveness and grace upon grace,
Even when you feel like you don’t deserve any of that,
Because you are beloved, forever and always.”“Drink this,” he said, “and remember me.”
For as often as we eat of this bread
and drink from this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s life,
witness, death, and resurrection, until he comes again.Gathered into one, we are bold to pray as Jesus taught us:
We continue with the Lord’s Prayer. -
