Are you prepared for protesters to come to your church? Am I? I don’t want it to happen, but “want” is a different question.
There are different ways to be prepared and one that matters most. Amid the tension of our time and the prevalence of protest, we would do well to prepare in various ways for protesters to come to church. And we should do it before they arrive.
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But whatever we do, we should prepare to communicate the gospel through both our words and actions. The gospel is the good news we are all looking for. It’s the good news we need.
Opinions about Sunday
Anti-ICE protesters interrupted a Sunday morning worship service in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jan. 18. I doubt this is news to you. Social and traditional media have been flooded with the story, its repercussions, and people’s opinions.
You’ve probably already formed your opinion about the situation and those involved. You may have formed your opinion weeks before Jan. 18. Whether you support ICE or the protesters, or some mixture of the two, I’m not likely to change your opinion here, nor will I try.
I also am not making any judgement about Cities Church, the worshippers, the protesters, or the protest itself. Nor am I seeking to excuse or justify any of them, nor assess the truth of anything they said.
Rather, my aim is to challenge us to keep one thing primary — communicating the gospel through our words and actions should we find or put ourselves amid protest.
The gospel above opinions
Before going further, I know I am expected to say something about the rightness or wrongness of what happened inside Cities Church Sunday morning. Those who know me know I don’t have a simple one-or-the-other response to this.
To get into the weeds of who or what was right or wrong is to be distracted from the most important thing Christians need to focus on in a situation like this.
The most important thing Christians need to do amid protest is communicate the good news about Jesus through our words and actions.
From a purely legal standpoint, three great freedoms collided inside the sanctuary of Cities Church on Jan. 18. The First Amendment guarantees (1) the free exercise of religion, (2) the freedom of speech, and (3) the freedom to peaceably assemble. From a legal standpoint, this is a fascinating case, and the law is already responding.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This article was written by Eric Black and originally published by the Baptist Standard.
