“My guess is when this photo was taken, the police were preventing the crowd from accessing the church parking lot because then they could have easily broken into the police station since the fencing on the church side is very weak,” he said in an email.
“We oppose police violence against people of color — against anybody,” he said. “We believe in the sanctity of life as a church. We believe and ask for justice and ask for mercy for everyone.”
A similar dynamic unfolded over the weekend at Lutheran Church of the Master, a congregation affiliated with the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. According to the Rev. Jim Verbout, an associate pastor at the church, LCM’s involvement came when a group of medics asked if they could use the church to administer aid to anyone who was injured.
The church agreed and opened its doors as part of a “hospitality ministry.”
“On Monday (April 12), we had our doors open because it was very cold and a lot of people wanted to use the restrooms,” Verbout said. “It was an easy way to connect with people and pray. We’re Lutherans, so then came the hot chocolate and coffee. Following that was the pastries and food.”
Like the Kenyan Community Seventh-day Adventist Church, Verbout stressed his congregation wasn’t necessarily taking sides. He said the church was open to all — “It was for medics, it was for press, it was for protesters, it was for police” — and that members of all groups made their way through the doors over the course of the week.
“I support Black Lives Matter and I support Blue Lives Matter — that’s blasphemy to so many people,” he said. “And it’s like, ‘No, it’s not — God’s love is for everybody.’”
He referenced Matthew 11 and Luke 18 — passages from the Bible that detail serving the hungry and Jesus listening to a beggar, respectively.
“We became a ministry of listening,” he said.
But the situation changed Wednesday night when demonstrators ran back to the church and police began shining lights at their walls. The same scenario repeated Friday evening, when dozens of demonstrators suddenly rushed into the church, fleeing police.
The officers followed, and the result was what Verbout described as a standoff between police and protesters in the church parking lot.
“‘I just thought, ‘God, what do you want me to do here?’ Because everyone was asking, ‘Can the police come in here? And I kept saying there is no law saying police cannot come in here,’” he said.
Verbout put on his pastor stole and began trying to calm demonstrators. He then approached police, hoping to deescalate the situation. Eventually, the police left, and the standoff resolved.
Verbout and other pastors at the church huddled afterward and concluded they couldn’t keep up the open-door hospitality ministry during the protests. The clergy worried they didn’t have enough support staff and expressed concerns about inadvertently sending what they saw as misleading messages.
“We did not want to give protesters the assumption (that) this is a place where police can’t come in and arrest,” he said. “That’s a dangerous precedent to set up, and … we don’t want to be interfering with the work (police) need to be doing as well.”
Other faith communities openly assisted demonstrators during racial justice protests over the past year. In nearby Minneapolis, a Holy Trinity Lutheran Church also opened its doors for demonstrators last year after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police. But the pastor of Holy Trinity was one of several faith leaders who sided with the cause of demonstrators by signing a letter calling on city officials to arrest the officer “who killed George Floyd and those (officers) who stood by and passively watched a murder.”
Other faith leaders actively participated in demonstrations that took place in Minneapolis or other parts of the country, some of which came in direct conflict with police. Clergy were pepper-sprayed by authorities, and others were struck by nonlethal projectiles fired at them by police. Priests and pastors were even among the racial justice demonstrators who were gassed and forcibly cleared from Washington’s Lafayette Square by federal authorities in June 2020, shortly before then-President Donald Trump walked across the park and held up a Bible in front of a church.
There were also moments that mirrored the situation in Brooklyn Center: In September of last year, police surrounded First Unitarian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, when about 100 protesters sought refuge from police in the church.
Verbout said he isn’t sure what his church’s next steps are, but he noted the police department has reached out to LCM about the possibility of hosting a prayer and reconciliation service for the community. LCM is also fielding a deluge of hate mail, especially from people critical of their willingness to assist the demonstrators.
Despite the stress, Verbout — who just started his job at LCM this month — appreciated the chance to learn.
“I know I have blind spots coming into community with people of color,” he said. “I grew up white middle class, so this is giving me the opportunity to connect with a lot of people in a community that’s hurting.”
This article originally appeared here.
