In light of events that took place at Cities Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, events that were broadcast around the world on Sunday, January 18, 2026, I was reminded of another Sunday, when our church in Chicago was the target of a similar event. With great sympathy for the plight of the pastor and parishioners that were ambushed by paid protestors, I want to recount our story and offer a few words of counsel to those who will be mobbed next.
A Sunday Unlike Any Other
Easter Sunday 1993 was a Lord’s Day I will never forget. It began with these four words: “Queer Nation is here!” Like a good watchman on the wall, this was the message that the usher brought to me as I prepared for service.
For those who don’t know, Queer Nation and Act Up are radical LGBTQ groups who have engaged in civil disobedience for decades. For instance, in 1989 thousands gathered outside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City to protest that church’s position on abortion, homosexuality, and AIDS. Yet, in that instance, like the episode in Minnesota, the mob did not stay outside. Dozens entered the church and disrupted service.
In our experience, the entrance into the church was due to our invitation. Members from our church, offering love, prayer, and adoption services outside our local abortion clinic, met these groups who showed up to oppose our presence. By this ministry then, many of our members knew the protestors by name and by face. And with evangelistic zeal, they even invited these enemies of the faith to church.
In response to one of these invitations, the answer was, “We’re coming to your church.” And knowing that, we prepared for their arrival. When I learned that Queer Nation was planning to come to our church, I knew what to expect. Their reputation preceded them and so with the time we had, we made a plan. Portions of that plan can be seen in the detail below. But suffice it to say, we took a page from Jehoshaphat and prepared for the spiritual battle with singing.
If you don’t recall the story of Jehoshaphat, take a minute to read 2 Chronicles 20, where you will find these climactic verses.
And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said,
“Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.”
And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say,
“Give thanks to the Lord,
for his steadfast love endures forever.”22 And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.
The executive summary is that when Jehoshaphat was threatened by the armies of Ammon and Moab, he organized the Levites to sing praises to God. And when the time came for battle, the Lord gave victory by means of their singing. By God’s grace, this is what we did too.
In response to the usher, I told the watchman, “Tell the band and call the police”.
At this time in our church life, I was the musical worship leader, in addition to being the preaching pastor. And so, as I made final preparations for service, I knew I would be on the platform for whatever would come next. And so, as I lead the Easter-sized crowd in song, I’m eyeballing the congregation with all of its Easter strangers. I’m thinking to myself, “if they try something, it will be during a prayer or the message.”
Moving past the prayer, I begin my Easter sermon. Ten minutes in and I’m completely occupied spiritually, mentally, emotionally with the message. I walk around when I preach, and so as I moved to the right side of the platform, I recall looking to the far left section of the sanctuary. And as I come around to the left side of the pulpit to look out into the center of the audience, two people had slipped from the third row and were standing directly in front of me. Looking at me, one said, “We have something we’d like to say.”
This was the moment we had anticipated and, by God’s grace, we were prepared. In that moment, I took a step back, threw both hands up and said quite loudly and enthusiastically, “Let’s stand and sing.”
While the members of our church might have been startled by this unusual direction, the band was ready and the person at the keyboard, who had been sitting there at the ready, hit a chord and we sang with gusto:
In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus,
We have the victory.
In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus
Demons have to flee
Tell me, who can, stand before us
When we, call on, his great name
Jesus, Jesus, Precious Jesus
We have the victory.
As planned, the band was on it from the first note. The vocal team joined me on the platform during the first line. The head usher and his partner were down the aisle in a flash wheeling the two around and marching them out, down the center aisle, before we were three lines into the song.
Incredibly, this all happened at the same time. Honestly, it was shock and awe! The two didn’t know what was happening, nor did the rest of their group. As we put the pieces together later, we realized that those two were the signal. Their action was to mobilize the rest of the group, which had scattered across the auditorium, much like the mob in Minneapolis.
Yet, in our case, by standing, we covered them physically, making them far less visible and obvious. Likewise, by singing, we covered any potential speech, shouting, chanting, or cursing. Then with the cover of song, our designated safety team took action to remove the agitators.
An Instructive Interlude
There’s more to this story, but let me pause for a moment to highlight two critical pieces of the strategy. First, our actions were taken with zero explanation. While the band and safety team were aware of the situation, no one else was. But with a moment’s notice and clear directive (“Let’s stand and sing!”) they were standing and singing within five seconds. Without ever rehearsing this “call to worship,” we learned by experience that a decisive call to sing was the surprising action that effectively preserved order in the service and protected members from the wicked intentions of these agitators.
Yet, there’s second lesson here, too, and it has to do with song choice. In a moment like this, you cannot sing a lullaby or some subdued, suburban prayer song. No, you need a war song! A march! Or a call to arms!
Sadly, many churches do not sing imprecatory psalms or songs fit for battle. If that is true for your church, then that may be the first way to prepare for protestors. For surely, the church must be familiar enough with the song you choose to let the sound shake the rafters and the heavens themselves. Of course, this also means that your AV team will need to be ready, too.
Indeed, there is planning that must go into such a response. And below I will outline twenty-five action steps to consider. But let me finish the story first.
The Rest of the Story
As soon as we finished the song, I said, “You may be seated.” And then I preceded to preach the message without giving any explanation. Looking back, I would’ve loved to know what the Easter guests were thinking at this point. Some might have reasoned that this was quite a short sermon, with an oddly abrupt closing song, precipitated by two strange men standing in the service. And maybe, if I had to do over, I might’ve said something about the situation, because I’m sure no one was listening to me after that interesting interruption.
Yet, explanation would come quickly. For as I began preaching again, it was only ten minutes before a tall man stands up, takes a deep breath while lifting his right hand to his mouth. And, as the Lord gave me insight, I perceived exactly what was going on. This was the protestors’ second attempt to disrupt the service. And this time it would come with a police whistle—and it was loud.
If you’re reading the stories out of Minneapolis, you are aware that whistles are one of the protesters’ greatest weapons. And yet, a single whistle is no match for a congregation declaring the praises of God. And so in this instance, I threw my hands in the air again and invited everyone to “stand and sing.”
And like before, the congregation jumped to their feet, and now our people understood what wass going on. And they threw themselves into the song.
In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus
We have the victory
In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus
Demons have to flee…………
Now, as the story goes, I need to say something about the police. Remember, we called them at the beginning of the service, but dutifully (I guess) they asked: “What is going on right now?” And we answered truthfully, “At present, nothing is happening.” And can you guess what they said? Their response was, “Call us if something happens.”
Perhaps the response of the police in your city would be different, but as we prepared for that Sunday, we had no reason to believe that we could rely on the police.1 Yet, again God was gracious to provide our congregation an example that would prepare us for Easter Sunday. Sometime before Queer Nation invaded our service, I had listened to a recording made by a Baptist Church in San Francisco. It was invaded by activists just like was we were facing. Only, on that occasion, believers huddled in their building while windows were smashed, landscape was destroyed, and walls graffitied. With pounding on doors and windows, it was a situation that recalled the Genesis 19 scene of Lot in Sodom.
1. The situation in Minneapolis was similar. Reports are that the police response time lagged by at least ten minutes. By the time they had arrived, the protestors had already left the building. See United States v. Nekima Valdez Levy-Armstrong et al., No. 0:26-mj-00040-LMP-DLM (D. Minn. filed Jan. 20, 2026), Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint by Timothy Gerber, at 2, 14.
Now thankfully, Chicago’s finest proved to be more noble than the police in San Francisco. For after making the call, some officers must’ve gotten curious. And as the morning unfolded, four or five officers arrived some minutes after the first attempted disruption. This means, they witnessed the second attempt and were more than happy to march down the center aisle, accompanied by our ushers, to remove two of the most egregious protestors.
Upon their removal, we finished the song, and I invited everyone to sit again. Then, I dove back into the sermon to proclaim the power of the resurrected Christ. The police proceeded to arrest seven agitators, and the congregation was given a visible reminder of God’s power—along with a story to share at work on Monday! “You’ll never guess what happened at church yesterday.”
In all, I never addressed the disruptors from the platform. I never explained to the congregation who they were. I gave them no platform, no identification. After the second attempt, it was clear to everyone that there were people present determined to take over the service. And that’s all the Easter guests needed to know. Our members for the most part knew what was happening, and by singing praises to our victorious Lord, we were able to see order preserved and the people protected.
Now admittedly, this story has a happy ending. And it illustrates how the Lord can be honored when we plan for protestors interrupting our service. Yet, I would be remiss to suggest that we can simply trust in our plans. As Psalm 20:7 says, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Truly, God’s people are those who trust in the power of the Lord and not in the power of our plans. Yet, we would be foolhardy to see the recent events in Minneapolis and not make plans.
And so, as I will outline below, I pray that our planning, limited as it was, will help you prepare your church for the day when protestors arrive. And that if the Lord should choose to permit such protestors, that you too will see the power of the Lord manifested in your own church.
Twenty-Five Lessons for Churches Facing Protestors
1. Know What Time It Is
Before laying out things to do and ways to prepare, let me offer five cautions, or five things not to do.
First, don’t downplay the temperature of the culture. We faced our protestors in 1993, and since then the public vitriol against Christ, his church, and his Word have only increased. So, don’t downplay the threat of protestors targeting your church, even if you’re in the suburbs or a small town.
Second, don’t assume that this cannot or will not happen to you. If you are faithfully proclaiming the whole counsel of God’s Word, you are a target-rich environment.
Third, don’t think that you will see them coming or will be able to spot the protestors. Unless you’re a small church with few visitors, protestors can easily infiltrate unnoticed. So, do not merely trust in your visual inspection of the gathering crowd.
Fourth, don’t rely on the fact that “we have a number of people who carry.” Think that through. While an armed safety team may be optimal for countering an active shooter, weapons of steel are not effective for eliminating disruptors. In our day, when everyone is a cameraman, the optics would be devastating for a church deacon to brandish his gun towards an unarmed protester. And the risk of an unforced error would be heightened. So, safety teams should be trained to protect the church from violent actors, but they must also be able to handle non-violent protestors.
Fifth, don’t read this column as legal advice or a comprehensive guide. Rather, consider it a story to help you think of other ways to respond to the unexpected church protest. May it help you think through your own context and needed preparations.
2. Be Prepared
With those cautions in place, let me offer eight action steps for preparation. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, our preparations were primitive and barely adequate. Yet, there were sufficient enough to handle the protestors that arrived. And I trust that you will be even better prepared as you have time to prepare.
So, first, pray! While expressing itself physically, this is a spiritual battle. So, don’t forget to pray and to seek the Lord for his support and protection.
Second, prepare your hearts in the spirit of Christ to be like him, who was full of grace and truth. God wants to be glorified in His church, whether that comes by undisturbed order or in the face of subversive interruptions. Still, how one conducts themselves in the service (in the face of rolling cameras!) is vital for the ongoing ministry of the gospel. So, pray for protection and for a discernibly godly response.
Third, choose people for your safety team. For starters, the team should include a security team leader, a communications point-person, the point pastor, designated worship leaders, a media liaison/spokesperson, and a videographer/photographer. Some of these roles might overlap, and others might not seem like roles on a “safety team,” but if you choose to employ the weapon of song, it is key to know who is doing what when the time comes.2
2. One variable might mean having a powerful instrumental song on the ready, so that when the pastor calls for the congregation to stand and sing, he is not left waiting for the musicians to get into position. Likewise, it might be wise to train your people to sing a capella, so that when the command to sing is given, they know how to carry a tune. Pastors, this also means you may need to begin the song by yourself.
Fourth, recruit and drill your team. If the time comes to deploy the team, you do not want unauthorized people getting in your way. Moreover, you don’t want those on the team to be paralyzed by inexperience. Thus, as odd as it may be in some congregations for the pianist to remain on the platform ready to play, this is something that should be anticipated, if there are signs of protestors.
Fifth, identify, and have in hand, relevant state, county and municipal laws. Ideally, the church will have one or more law enforcement officers on the team. But if not, someone on the team should become a resident expert on the matter, even having met previously with law enforcement to walk through the plan and to know what exactly is legal or illegal.
Sixth, have a trusted attorney on speed dial. And just as important, let him know ahead of time what a phone call on Sunday morning means.
Seventh, identify vulnerabilities in your building(s). These might include points of access to the property, the sanctuary, the classrooms, the sound booth, the children’s wing, the platform, the fire alarms, and more. In short, think carefully about how to steward the building and protect the people that gather on Sunday by identifying hidden vulnerabilities.
Eighth, pick a song that your people know and a song that will shake the heavens. Then be sure to sing that song on a regular basis. Additionally, you might use time in a members meeting to discuss this plan and to let them know how this song will be used!
3. Make Your Decisions Beforehand
Moving beyond the plan for protestors, there are some broader decisions to make. And ideally, these are decisions to be made before the day comes. Consider three decisions you will need to make beforehand.
First, establish your objectives and your convictions. Are you seeking to prevent suspicious individuals from entering the church? Or, are you seeking to be ready in case of a coordinated interruption? And how will decide to pursue one of those actions and not the other? Equally, how might your plan be tailored to respond to different threats? For instance, will you do the same thing for one agitator? Or will it require a group? Indeed, while legal details will differ in various states, federal law does not permit anything like what we saw in Minneapolis.3 And neither does Scripture. First Corinthians 14 calls for an orderly service, and churches that seek to honor God should therefore plan to protect their people and their service from enemies of the faith
3. Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-259, 108 Stat. 694 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 248). Specifically, the Face Act criminalizes anyone who, “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship; or . . . intentionally damages or destroys the property . . . . of a place of religious worship.”
Second, make a decision about (dis)allowing entry. This is critical. It is one thing to barricade your doors against a group of people marching towards your entrance who are shouting, chanting, waving signs, etc. No decision necessary. It is another thing to see someone or several such people, unknown to you, coming into your worship space with a rolled up poster board which could be a sign or a knapsack.
In our case, not only did we know the parties, but they had been invited to our services. The upside was, when they came through the doors, we knew who they were and went on high alert. The noteworthy piece here is, we decided to welcome them into our worship space. Yet, in another instance, it would be wholly appropriate to confront would-be protestors, even if they were “invited.”
As Jordan Howe notes in his essay “When Worship is Attacked, Churches Must Be Prepared to Restore Order,” there are at least three phases to maintaining order in a service: the pre-contact, contact, and post-contact phases. And if a certain group were identified at the outset, the safety team could identify and engage with one or more of the group before service—thus initiating a move from the pre-contact to the contact phase, instead of just waiting for something to happen. Remember, while even if would-be protesters were invited to church, this does not give them authorization to protest in the service.
Third, to reiterate an earlier point, don’t assume you will be able to perfectly discern a group of obvious disruptors. It is one thing to deny entry to people who appear suspicious, it another thing to visually identify everyone coming into church—especially if the congregation is larger and the day is filled with a higher number of visitors. For example, Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day crowds are usually filled with unfamiliar faces. So, this means that while making plans that anticipate and pre-engage protestors are good, reactive strategies must be considered, too.
4. Act with Bold Confidence
With all plans, there must be confidence in the Lord and confidence in the steps your safety team will take to diffuse a potentially harmful situation. To garner such confidence, here are four considerations.
First, trust your plan. After trusting the Lord, your action plan will give you confidence to act swiftly and confidently. In reality, you don’t know what tactics the disruptors may attempt. So, your plan should have a certain degree of flexibility, that enable you to act decisively, quickly, and strongly. Importantly, to control an out-of-control situation, you cannot have people asking: “What should we do?”
Second, your greatest assets is the congregation. Having your congregation stand and physically cover would-be disruptors deprives these protestors of visibility and confuses them. If the protestors are worth the pay they are receiving—as many are paid to disrupt—then they will have a plan too. And so, passively waiting for them to carry out their plan is the last thing to do. Far better, have a plan that thwarts theirs by means of employing the spiritual weapons of war God has given—namely, prayer and singing!
Third, sing with great volume and greater faith. Remember, this battle is the Lord’s and is at bottom spiritual. Therefore, do not underestimate the way that demon-possessed agitators will be pushed back by a militant song proclaiming Christ’s victory. While any action plan must include a safety team that physically removes the protestors, this singing both calls upon the Lord and lets the servants of justice do their work.
Practically, such singing will also muffle, if not mute, any sounds that the disruptors are trying to use as part of their plan. During our ministry in front of the town abortion clinic, I’ll never forget overhearing one of the worn-out pro-abortion chanters say to another one, “We need some songs.” Chanting and yelling takes a lot of energy and gets old quick, but you can sing all day. And thus, the church should not minimize the power of singing.
Fourth, have adequate manpower. Every church will have different resources, but in the event that a confrontation occurs, the manpower used to remove people from the church must be overwhelmingly adequate. To minimize tussles, struggles, and delays, the safety team must include a team of men that is trained and ready. Having some larger, self-controlled men and well-trained law enforcement officers on the team is, of course, the ideal.
5. Speak with Wisdom, Grace, and Truth
Finally, do not think that all is finished when the service is over and the protestors go home (or to jail). If you have agitators attempting to break up your service, you can expect to give an account to the police, to reporters, or to other interested parties. And so, this is where having a communications strategy, as well as designating a specific spokesman, is vital. To that end, here are five ways to plan.
First, speak in ways that honor Christ. If you choose to give an explanation in the service, do it in the spirit of Christ. Do not let Christ’s enemies offer any promotion, explanation, or advertisement for their views. Rather, extol the power, presence, and goodness of our Lord, without letting this event steal the focus on Christ.
Second, be ready to speak to those outside the church. Within a short time, you must be ready for the press that day or shortly thereafter. Prepare a statement and decide who is best to deliver that statement. Choose wisely the sources to whom you speak. Not all media outlets are the same, and if necessary, seek counsel from other trusted pastors for navigating any interview requests. Recognize that these statements and interviews will be an opportunity to exalt Christ when the community’s attention is on you.
Third, review any video or photos before you make them available to the press. Today, if possible, all churches should prioritize having a security system that includes video cameras. Then, if an event occurs, you should cooperate with police to apprehend anyone who committed a crime. And from there, a decision should be made about what should be released to the press. You are under no obligation to share anything to the press, especially if it will be used to further malign the church.
Fourth, debrief with your safety team before they go home. While more consultations and evaluations will take place in the days to come, don’t leave without talking to everyone involved. This is both a personal and spiritual check-up that cares for the souls of those called to protect the church. But this also includes any factual information that needs to be written down, or any action steps that need to be addressed: Was anything broken? Did any systems fail? Is there anything that needs immediate change? These are all matters that can be discussed in short debrief meeting after the service.
Fifth, turn everything over to the Lord. What has taken place in your church is not a surprise to God and all of it should be committed to prayer. So, share relevant information with your church, so that they can pray for the church and for those who sought to interrupt its service. If an event like this takes place in church, it is for the greater glory of God. And so, how we respond will determine how that glory is seen.
Equally, as your entire church processes the event, be sure to reach out and have personal conversations with church members. Like a home invasion or a mugging in the local park can make someone apprehensive about both places, so too a church invasion could have the same effects. Lord willing, a strong response of song strengthens one’s resolve to return and worship God. But if reactions go differently than what our church experienced, then it might require further pastoral care.
Conclusion
In all, my encouragement is to be prepared and to be prayerful. Avoid passivity and the delusion that this could never happen to us. Instead, learn from recent events and historical events. The church sits at the intersection of heaven and earth, and so we should not be surprised that the powers of hell and those deluded by Satan’s lies would seek to harm those in church. And yet, Christ is stronger and his people should approach these challenging with faith, hope, and love—as well as with a ready song and safety teams capable of confronting and removing protestors.
If anything, it is my hope that this story of God’s faithfulness offers you a vision of what a church can do when protestors come to church. And it is my hope, that you will have your stories too, where the glory of the Christ is manifested in your worship service—without or with the presence of protestors.
