How then shall we pray?

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

A Christian worship service in St. Paul, Minnesota, was disrupted and ultimately shut down this past weekend after protesters entered the sanctuary and began shouting slogans and berating worshipers.

WORLD Opinions commentator Joe Rigney is one of the founding pastors of that church. He served there for many years and says this new moment calls for a clear response from Christians: prayer, for lawful authority, for courage to resist intimidation, and for comfort grounded in Scripture.

SOUND: [CLAMOR, RIOTING]

JOE RIGNEY: Sounds can be deceiving.

You’re not listening to a political rally. This is, or began, as a Christian worship service.

SOUND: [CHAOS IN CITIES CHURCH]

Leftwing activists targeted Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, after finding out that one of their pastors worked for the local ICE office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

PROTESTER: ICE out! ICE out! 

This past Sunday morning in St. Paul Minnesota, that service at Cities began as it always does each week with singing, prayer, and Scripture.

Protesters sat through that opening portion, and then, on cue:

AUDIO: So the protesters are confronting church members and leaders. They have stopped the service, a lot of people. Number of people have left. There are some who are still sitting here.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and his team recorded the entire disruption and streamed it live on YouTube.

He knew what was going to happen and when. So he waited outside Cities Church, where I was a founding pastor and served for eight years.

When the planned moment came, I noticed several terrified worshipers fleeing by way of side doors and slipping on the snow-covered walkway. They had no idea whether the agitators were armed.

Thankfully, I suppose, all they were there to do is shut down the service, and it worked.

They proudly filmed and posted themselves screaming at children, harassing churchgoers. Demanding that they denounce ICE. Accusing them of being “fake Christians” for not “standing with their Latino and Somali neighbors.”

So who bears responsibility for this? Well clearly, the agitators themselves. But responsibility also rests with the politicians who have aided and encouraged this lawlessness—from Joe Biden, who willfully allowed the mass invasion of illegal migrants during his four years in office, to Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey.

Both have refused to cooperate with federal agents and instead have encouraged their activists to “protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.”

And that last qualification is a vain and ineffectual attempt to contain the chaos and disorder that Walz’s rhetoric has unleashed. For the left, the only law is lawlessness.

Now one thing the worshipers and the protesters likely agree on is something the leader of the protest said afterward: this church will never be the same.

So how do we respond to this new day of chaos and disorder in our own cities, and now, in our churches?

First, we pray. 

We pray that our government officials would uphold law and order, fulfilling their God-given mandate to punish evildoers, as laid out in Romans 13.

We pray that they would be a terror to evil conduct. That they would bear the sword righteously and purposefully, that they carry out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

And this includes praying for ICE as agents carry out their lawful mission to protect public safety and national security.

And it includes praying … and insisting … that those who invade worship gatherings to intimidate parishioners be held accountable.

Second, we ought to grow in our ability to resist intimidation. 

We must recognize the schemes of the devil at play: appeals to Christian love to justify lawbreaking. Scripture twisting so that care for the foreigner and sojourner becomes a demand for open borders. Moral shaming—claiming obedience to God makes you a bad Christian if your refuse to submit to the left’s ideology of decay, disorder, and death.

Christians must learn the tactics of God’s enemies and resist them with fortitude and joy, refusing to appease the lawless mob.

Finally, we should take comfort from Scripture.

The book of Acts is filled with scenes like this: mobs shouting slanders, threats against Christian leaders, and authorities either complicit or paralyzed by fear.

In those days, the early church did not respond with panic. Instead, they prayed.

They recognized the sovereign hand of God amidst the chaos, and their prayer is recorded in the 4th chapter of Acts: “Now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.”

And the living God answered that prayer. May He do the same in our day.

For WORLD, I’m Joe Rigney.

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