The Rev. Julie Van Til, pastor of Flossmoor Community Church, heard that a call had been put out for faith leaders of every tradition to gather in Minnesota only four days ahead of time. Three days later, she was on a plane. Van Til was one of over 600 religious leaders from across the country who t ravelled to Minnesota to take part in mass demonstrations against the ongoing immigration crackdown in the state on Jan. 23. “We are called to love the stranger and make room for the foreigner,” Van Til said. “As a Christian, I think that the spaces we live in benefit from diversity, and a population of people who perhaps haven’t belonged to each other before, to learn to belong to each other for a better future.” Van Til said she was inspired by the neighborhood-level resistance to Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. “I admired what was happening on the ground in the neighborhoods here, and I knew that there was something ground-level good about the way people were treating their neighbors,” Van Til said. That experience motivated her to go to Minneapolis when she got the call about faith leaders gathering to protest. “It’s like a monster that just diverts its angrier and angrier attention to another place,” Van Til said. “It felt far away, but so close to home.” The interfaith coalition Van Til joined was organized by a group called MARCH. In its call to action for faith leaders, MARCH invoked a telegram written by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965, calling on clergy from across the country to join him in marching from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery to protest segregation and demand voting rights for Black citizens. “Clergy came from across the country. Among them was Rev. James Reeb, who was brutally beaten and later died from his injuries,” MARCH stated on its website. “It is in that same spirit — and with that same clarity — that we issue this call now.” In Minnesota, the local Unitarian Universalist Association put out a call for donations for cold-weather gear to keep visiting faith leaders warm in the freezing temperatures, Van Til said. The Rev. Julie Van Til bundles up against the cold in Minneapolis on Jan. 22, 2026. (Julie Van Til) “We had tables of outerwear, innerwear, underwear, boots, hats, gloves, warmers, anything out-of-towners would need to survive in, not just -20°, but the windchill factor on top of that,” Van Til said. “That is an example of the goodness that I saw everywhere.” While in Minneapolis, Van Til was hosted by a local family, one member of whom patrolled around the local middle and high schools twice daily. “It’s easy to drive around and feel like nothing is happening,” Van Til said. “If you are your average middle or upper class person, and you’re not taking public transportation, you could drive from your home and to a familiar grocery store, and maybe to work and back, and never know that anything is happening.” Or, she said, you could suddenly come across car horns blowing and crowds gathering. “I was corrected in saying, by someone I was patrolling with, I said, ‘Oh, there’s a protest,'” Van Til said. “He said, ‘No no, that’s protection.’ And I thought that was really powerful that people were coming out on the streets, not as a political protest first and foremost. It was as a violence deterrent, to keep their neighbors alive.” A protester holds a sign with a Bible quote on Jan. 23, 2026 in Minneapolis. (Julie Van Til) While Van Til was patrolling, other faith leaders in the coalition were protesting in other ways, including around 100 clergy members who were arrested for kneeling in front of the main terminal of Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in protest of deportation flights. “Jesus and his followers gave us plenty of ways to resist when that authority was being unjust,” Van Til said. “Non-compliance. Gumming up the wheels of the system just enough to maybe help people pause and realize what they’re doing. Showing mercy to them when they’re not showing mercy to you.” The same day, Van Til joined a protest march in downtown Minneapolis that drew thousands. Protesters march through downtown Minneapolis in protest of the immigration crackdown on Jan. 23, 2026. (Julie Van Til) Van Til was on the plane home Saturday morning, she said, when she got word that Alex Pretti had been shot and killed in Minneapolis. “I wanted to turn around and go back so badly,” Van Til said. “But we’re really called to do the non-sexy work of connecting with people and caring for our neighbors right where we are, to keep that movement going. And the movement matters. That’s why Alex was out there.” One of the things that struck her most on her return, she said, was the positive response of her congregation in Flossmoor. When she came back, many people thanked her for having gone to Minneapolis. “I feel like that shows the impulse of so many people around our nation, really, who want to help, but in particular Christians, who are longing for a representation in the media of Jesus loving the neighbor, and standing with the vulnerable,” Van Til said. “It was powerful for me to see how much it meant to them, that I went and represented that for them.” [email protected] ...read more read less