On January 19, for the first time in almost 20 years, no immigrants of color attended the worship service at Messiah Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. “Not one of Messiah’s African nor Southeast Asian members was willing to risk coming in person,” said the Rev. David Langille, the parish’s rector.
The congregation averages 157 people on Sundays, and usually around 40 of these — sometimes more — are people of color.
The livestream, however, had a larger-than-usual attendance.
Fear and anxiety among the immigrant parishioners have been heightened by ICE raids happening across Minneapolis and St. Paul. “They are scared,” said Luke Walbert, a parishioner who have formed deep relationships with the parish’s immigrant members. Langille calls him the most tied in “of all the white folks here.”
According to Walbert, some of them have begun expressing fears of opening their doors or doing grocery outside, even if they have documents.
At one point, an immigrant parishioner who was already a naturalized U.S. citizen was accompanied by another Messiah member while grocery shopping. They also helped her photocopy her naturalization certificate and her children’s birth certificates to keep on hand.
During the same week that Renee Nicole Macklin Good, a U.S. citizen, was killed during immigration operations in Minneapolis, a nursing mother who shares the same heritage as the immigrant congregation was taken off the sidewalk by ICE. She couldn’t speak English well and was unable to explain what was happening. Members of the immigrant congregation knew the woman.
Langille said the immigrant parishioners made calls to the City Council and reached out to an immigration nonprofit to support the young mother who was arrested and detained.
The Department of Homeland Security began conducting its largest immigration operations ever in the Twin Cities metropolitan area at the beginning of the year, initially with a focus on the Somali American population. In widely circulated images and videos, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and ICE agents are seen going door to door looking for migrants.
At Messiah, several lay leaders have received training on how to monitor entrances and exits on Sunday mornings. The parish will soon begin a ministry providing food and essentials for immigrant members who are now afraid to leave their homes for fear of being arrested and detained. There will also be a 24/7 prayer ministry.
“The whole congregation seems to be rising up, and it’s really in a way galvanizing,” Langille told The Living Church. “I’m very aware we won’t have energy to do this forever, but I think the next month will be very, very telling [of] what we can do together.”
Mobilizing for Love
In December 2007, Messiah began welcoming Anglican immigrants from various parts of the world who came to the country as refugees. Walbert, who began worshipping at Messiah in 2003, was there when the first group arrived. He would drive several of them to and from the parish for worship services. Fellow parishioners also offered practical help for the new members, including teaching them how to distinguish legitimate mail from junk mail.
Eight years later, around 2015, many of the immigrants had found jobs, bought cars and homes, and become proficient in English. “Our ministry shifted toward how do we help them continue to worship as a body of Episcopal Anglican believers,” Walbert told TLC. A key step was helping them begin a congregation in their native language.
A grant the parish received several years ago helped jump-start a monthly Eucharist in 2023, where the readings, prayers, and hymns are all in their mother tongue.
Langille celebrates the Eucharist with them; the English passages he reads are translated by a bilingual member. There is also a monthly Evening Prayer service led entirely by members of the community. The rector said that worshiping with them — often in their homes, where they all eat together afterward — is like experiencing the Book of Acts.
Langille said the parish had received support and guidance from the Migration Caucus of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota. The Rev. Daniel Romero who’s part of the caucus’s leadership team met with immigrant members and shared his expertise in immigration law.
During a churchwide vigil held on January 13, Bishop Craig Loya of Minnesota offered a reflection that addressed what is happening across the diocese.
“It is hard to overstate the magnitude of the random and reckless cruelty that we are seeing and the depth of the fear that nearly everyone is living with all the time,” Loya said. Saying that the forces of fear would want the church to meet “hate with hate” and “scorn with scorn,” he urged the church to disrupt with Jesus’ hope and agitate with Jesus’ love.
“We, as followers of Jesus, are in this moment going to make like our ancient ancestors and turn the world upside down by mobilizing for love,” Loya said, referring to the Apostle Paul and Silas’ mission in the Book of Acts.
In a statement to the media, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that in the last six weeks, the agency has arrested more than 3,000 people in the Minneapolis area, including “incredibly dangerous individuals.” Noem called the operation a “huge victory for public safety.”
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.