Rev. Tyler Sit explores community resilience, church activism, and spiritual resistance in ICE-occupied Minneapolis.
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On this episode of Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Everyday, host Ryan Dunn sits down with Tyler Sit, pastor of New City Church in Minneapolis, to explore how faith communities navigate the complexities of politics, crisis, and community care. Set against the backdrop of heightened ICE activity and community unrest in Minneapolis, Tyler Sit shares firsthand stories of fear and resilience, and how his congregation has transformed both its ministry practices and its spirit of support in response to events in early 2026.
About our guest:
Rev. Tyler Sit is the planting pastor of New City Church in Minneapolis, a second-generation Chinese American, speaker, and author of Staying Awake: The Gospel for Changemakers and Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope. He contributed to A Preacher's Guide to Topical Sermon Series. Tyler dedicates his work to justice, inclusion, and mobilizing spiritual communities for collective care and transformation.
Episode Notes:
In this episode:
(00:00) Navigating faith, politics and partisanship
(01:44) Who is Rev. Tyler Sit?
(03:01) How has Operation Metro Surge affected Minnesota and the church?
(04:21) The role of a pastor is to set up blessing
(05:05) Stories of blessing
(09:00) Romans 13 and speaking truth to power
(11:07) Faithful protest
(20:24) Forgetting and rediscovering we are family
(22:40) What the operation is costing Minnesotans
(27:00) A clearer understanding of church
(34:49) Faithful responses from outside Minnesota
(40:10) More episodes to check out!
Related Episodes:
- How worship and contemplation disrupt cycles of brokenness (our first episode with Rev. Tyler Sit!)
- Justice, equity and inclusion with Bishop Julius Trimble
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More podcasts
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This episode posted on February 18, 2026
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:01]:
Navigating faith and politics. Many don't want to do it, but we need to. So that's what we're addressing with Minneapolis pastor Tyler Sitte on this episode of Compass. You're listening to Compass, finding spirituality in the everyday. My name is Ryan Dunn. It's mid-February 2026. Minneapolis and Minnesota have been prevalent in the news as of late. In case you're listening down the proverbial road of time, that's because of heavy Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in the area.
Ryan Dunn [00:00:43]:
Their tactics have been aggressive, to say the least, lethal in the worst cases, as we will talk about in the cases of Renee Goode and Alex Pretty, who were killed by Border Patrol and ICE agents. Our conversation with Reverend Tyler Sitte makes it clear that this presence impacts all of life across the area. And while these actions are inspiring fear and distrust, Reverend Tyler Sit offers some other inspiring perspectives. He's going to share how the crisis has reshaped his pastoral practices, how it has increased community mobilization, and how it's highlighted the spiritual resilience of individuals coming together in response to violence and fear. We're going to get into navigating political tensions while remaining rooted in faith, sharing stories of hope amidst adversity, and the role of the church in fostering connection and support for immigrant communities. Who is Reverend Tyler Sitte? Well, you may remember him from episode 60 of this podcast released in May of 2021. Holy cow, 5 years. He talked with us then about how worship "Prayer and Meditation Interrupt the World's Cycles of Brokenness." That was in the wake of the release of his book, "Staying Awake: The Gospel for Changemakers." Tyler was then and is now the planting pastor of New City Church in Minneapolis.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:14]:
He's a second-generation Chinese American, and he focuses a lot of his work on justice for all people. Community, and inclusion. There's much to be discussed here. You might want to listen for how the church can engage in politics without partisanship and how isolation is not the answer to our human issues. So let's go. Reverend Tyler Sitte on Compass. Reverend Tyler, 2026 has probably, well, reshaped your practice of ministry thus far versus what it may have looked like in 2025. 25 or days earlier.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:56]:
So can you tell us a little bit about how the recent demonstrations in Minneapolis, how the ICE occupation in Minneapolis, how all that has affected the life of your church?
Tyler Sit [00:03:09]:
Oh, gosh, yeah. Operation MetroSurge has changed functionally every aspect of our church life together. It's changed our worship, small groups, administration, building use, pastoral care, community engagement. Every aspect of our life together has been affected. You know, cut to a couple Sundays ago when there was a raid happening 2 blocks away from church, and we couldn't start our worship service because half of the congregation was going out to make sure that our neighbors were going to be taken care of. So yeah, like, literally, logistically, it's, it's affected every aspect of our church, much less the spiritual and emotional impacts of having so much fear in the streets and so much cautiousness and lack of feeling like we can walk down the street in safety. So yeah, it's affected the body of Christ. Absolutely.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:07]:
How about your practice as a pastor? Do you feel that the shape of your ministry, the demands of your ministry is maybe a better way to put it, have been altered by all this?
Tyler Sit [00:04:21]:
Yes, so as a pastor, the main way that I approach my work, how I envision being a pastor, is to set people up to bless each other. And that's always the case in any ministry season. I am always trying to set people up to bless each other. Because, as you know, in the United Methodist system, we have an itinerancy, and I want to make sure that I'm building up a community that will sustain itself even after I'm appointed elsewhere. And that's just kind of healthy organizational development anyway. Ways. So everything has kind of went on hyperdrive because now the ways that people need support for each other is exponentially increased because of— because of Operation Metro Surge. So for example, there are folks at New City Church who aren't leaving their homes unless they're accompanied by a white community member.
Tyler Sit [00:05:15]:
So logistically, that just presents an whole new level of organization to figure out how people can get grocery store— go to the grocery store, go to the DMV, or go to places where they have to go to, go to the dentist. I'm also seeing a lot more food scarcity because people are unwilling to leave their homes, and so rightfully so. So, you know, we partner with organizations to do food shares every week through Walker Church, and which is another church that partners in the building, through Sisters Camelot. And that food share used to have 100 to 300 people coming to it every week, and lately Lately, it's been 6 people coming to it. So the entire operation has had to now change to a delivery operation and a decentralized food distribution model, which means, you know, 5 times as many volunteers are needed, capacity is needed to be able to pack this food. We need to hold information in really secure ways because we don't want to just be distributing willy-nilly. So yeah, it's, it's been an intense mobilization of people, and the art of setting people up to bless each other has been kind of multiplied. But I also want to name that there's been a real blessing in the upward energy that I'm seeing at New City Church.
Tyler Sit [00:06:41]:
There are so many people, so many people coming out of the woodwork, so many neighbors who are saying, I want to be part of the solution, I want to show care for people, and please set my hands to do this. And so we're seeing people who are taking vacation time off of their regular jobs to be able to support neighbors. We're seeing mothers who are— who have recently given birth, collectivizing their breast milk so that babies of families whose mother has been detained can be taken care of. You know, like everyone has— we're seeing retirees who thought that the bulk of their ministry days were over, going to schools to help supervise the drop-off and pickup times of school buses, because drop-off and pickup time is a— is a moment when ICE agents tend to either detain parents or detain school staff or teachers. So we have retirees finding a new sense of purpose from being able to stand on a sidewalk with a whistle So like there's this real coming together that is beautiful to witness and something that frankly I didn't even know was possible, but God has been good.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:55]:
Yeah.
Tyler Sit [00:07:56]:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:58]:
It, I appreciate you sharing those witnesses because it begins to paint the, the spiritual aspect of, of a response to this. So often for those of us who are not geographically there, are just kind of secondhand viewing the activities or things going on in Minnesota, there's a sense of removal. And certainly what we witness is painted as a picture of chaos and divisiveness. And so it helps so much to get these ideas of the ways in which people are coming together. When we, when we from the church aspect share messages coming out of Minnesota, there are some surprising lines of comments that pop up. One of them being that, well, those who may be, for example, who are standing on the street corner with a whistle are not respecting a command like Romans 13 to respect the authorities. Have you had verses like that kind of thrown back at you? Have you crafted a response to something like that? And for those who maybe don't know, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Romans 13 says that it's an encouragement to respect the governing authorities, that there's this sense that they have been ordained by God. And to go deeper into that, well, I'll let you do that.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:30]:
But has that been something that you've heard raised?
Tyler Sit [00:09:34]:
Yeah. [Speaker:ELLIE] So just to reiterate, what I'm seeing with people standing on the sidewalk watching schools, most, like 99% of the folks that I'm seeing are people who are standing on a sidewalk with a whistle and a phone, which is legal and constitutional. So I want to be clear that, like, a vast majority of the mobilization is inarguably something that we are entitled to based off of the laws and Constitution. Constitution of this land. There are some individuals and some tactics where they're entering a little bit of a gray area where we could enter more conversation. But I think about folks like Alex Petty, who was standing on a sidewalk and an ICE officer or a Border Patrol agent shoved a woman. And Alex Petty, as an ICU nurse, went to go help that woman. And then And then we know what happened next.
Tyler Sit [00:10:37]:
There are 5 agents surrounded him, emptied 10 shots into his body. He was legally carrying. So I say that to say that the aggression that we're seeing against the people of Minneapolis is not proportionate to any of the tactics going the other way. And I say this from someone who's watching it happening on the ground and not just someone who's part of kind of the social media sphere.
Ryan Dunn [00:11:06]:
I appreciate that.
Tyler Sit [00:11:07]:
The other story I wanted to name is New City Church is doing a sermon series right now called Bible Confident, where we're walking through the New Testament and giving people skills to feel confident in picking up the Bible and reading it for themselves. And the Bible is so— the Bible is so rich and so helpful and essential, really, for moments like this. I'm reading through the Book of Acts right now with my community, and it's uncanny, the parallels that we're seeing in the Book of Acts to what we're seeing on the ground here in Minneapolis. We hear in the Book of Acts, there are stories of women collectivizing to make sure that the needs of the widows are met. And I'm absolutely seeing that happening here. We're seeing Saul, a description of Saul going door to door and taking people out of their homes to arrest them. And that is a tactic that ICE agents used in Saint Paul. So we're seeing Saint Paul, ironically named after the rebrand of Saul.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:07]:
This is, you know, many of us pray for that, that, well, that witness of Saul who becomes Paul, who, you know, repents of this former way. Like, you know, we so want to hear that witness coming out of this experience.
Tyler Sit [00:12:25]:
Absolutely. And, you know, we have thousands of people joining resistance choirs who nonviolently sing on sidewalks. And one of the songs that went viral, a video went viral of them, was a song where the lyrics are, "It's okay to change your mind." And just like, you know, embracing folks saying it's okay to change your mind. And what we're seeing in the streets of Minneapolis is that over and over again, people who previously would not have shown up to protests changing their mind to show up for protests or rallies or vigils. And so we have stories of people who said, "I've never been to any type of politicized public gathering or any type of spiritual public gathering. And this is my first time because I saw what happened to Renée Goode, and it's pushing me over the edge." Or we're seeing people who are conservative, who are really concerned about gun rights laws and what happened to Alex Petty. We're seeing business owners who are noticing that in the city of Minneapolis, there are certain areas where there has been a 50 to 80% decrease of business to the— to shops in the area. And they're seeing, like, the real impacts, material impacts that this is having on their employees.
Tyler Sit [00:13:42]:
So it's not just kind of the stereotypical left-wing so-and-so's who are protesting. It's parents and children and retired clergy. Non-retired clergy coming together saying, we don't agree ideologically on a lot of things, but we do agree that the aggression that we're experiencing during Operation Metro Surge is not the vision that God has for the world.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:07]:
You mentioned the P word. I mean, political.
Tyler Sit [00:14:10]:
Sure.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:10]:
And another one of the thread of comments that we might see when, when posting about actions such as this, or even voicing a sense of resistance or word of resistance against aggressive government action like that is that The church is being political. Have you heard that?
Tyler Sit [00:14:31]:
Yeah, I think that, of course, New City Church is kind of in the— in a spotlight right now, particularly because we've— we're within walking distance of where Renee Goode was murdered. So there's been a certain amount of attention, but I want to name that New City Church also spoke out against ICE when Democrats were in charge, because ICE existed while Democrats were in charge. New City Church also spoke out against police brutality when Democrats were in charge. So I want to name, like, there's a difference between partisanship and being political. And so partisan means, you know, aligning with Democrat or Republican. Partisan means you're, you know, backing certain candidates. And New City Church engages in none of that, intentionally engages in nothing partisan. But to be political is to, you know, at its root, it's about the polis, P-O-L-I-S.
Tyler Sit [00:15:28]:
It's about the shared built community that we have together. And it's about engaging the question of how power is distributed. And when I look at the healing stories of Jesus, of people who were locked in graveyards and then reintroduced into society, of what he asked of the rich young ruler, I see Jesus negotiating power dynamics in his society to try to shape it to look a little bit more like the kingdom of God. And in that regard, Jesus was inextricably political because Jesus cared about power and society. And all of that was in service to the gospel. All of that was in service to good news that says that God is here for all of creation to be in peace and joy together. All of that in service is in service to God's saving work in the world.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:20]:
With that hopeful word, have there been some additional glimpses of maybe not just the community in action for the good of the world, but even, dare I say, like God in action?
Tyler Sit [00:16:37]:
Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to tell two stories that are a little intense. And so if your readers have some triggers or whatever, just know that, you know, you can fast forward a couple minutes. So the first story is about Alberto Castañeda Mondragón. Who was born in Mexico, came to Minnesota, started a business, started a construction business, had no criminal record, was arrested by an ICE agent, presumably because of race-based profiling, because he had no criminal record and there would be no reason to arrest him otherwise. After arresting him, they found that he had overstayed his visa, and so they detained him. And hours after his arrest, he was rushed to the hospital here in Minneapolis because of significant damage to his skull.
Tyler Sit [00:17:27]:
So the doctors were like, "Oh my gosh, what happened to this guy?" And the ICE agent said that he had intentionally run headfirst into a brick wall. And the doctors were doing an examination, the doctors were doing what they were trained to do and care for this person, and they realized that the wounds that he had on his skull could not have been self-inflicted. Was damage on the right and the left side of his brain. There was damage on the front and backside of his— I should say not brain, but skull. There was damage all the way through from the axis between the front and the back. And they said there's no way that a person could self-inflict this. And now this man who is fortunately released from hospital has a traumatic brain injury, and he has no family around to help him in his recovery process. But what really sticks in my heart part is that he had a phone call with his daughter back in Mexico, a 9-year-old girl, and he can't remember his own daughter.
Tyler Sit [00:18:30]:
The brain injury is such that he couldn't remember that he had a daughter. And so then she, a 9-year-old girl— a 10-year-old girl— had to explain to him the memories that they had together, the memory of when he taught her to dance, the relationship that they used to have.. And it was this rupture of family. And, and if you're familiar with traumatic brain injuries, you know that this is not going to be a quick recovery. So that is kind of one story of what's happening in Minneapolis. And then as a second story, I was contacted. So I was at church. I was contacted by a local teacher who said, we just did a survey of our families and 34 of these families are facing eviction because the businesses have been struck so much by Minneapolis that they don't have income and they can't pay rent.
Tyler Sit [00:19:25]:
And this, by the way, like, these are families that are not, like, quote-unquote "low-income families" necessarily. These are families that had jobs and were running—in some cases running businesses, but they were facing eviction. 34 families. And not 2 hours later, a donor calls me up, a United Methodist just from throughout the connection, not anyone who has worshiped at the church, and said, "I would like to donate a large sum of money to support families who are facing eviction. Do you know any families that I can get in touch with?" And I said, "In fact, I do. In fact, I do know some families you can get in touch with." And so, so, you know, he drove over and he pressed a check into my hand. And he said, "I want to tell you something." I have two adult children, and we had a family meeting together, and we prayed together, and we decided that we were going to spend down the children's inheritance in order to pay for families facing eviction because that is the legacy that we want to leave in the world. So just to juxtapose these two stories, like, we have people who are literally forgetting the family, the biological family that they have because of the violence that we're witnessing.
Tyler Sit [00:20:42]:
And then on the other hand, we have people who are rediscovering how they are family in Christ with people that they might not have even met. And how— and that God extends this sense of kinship and family to all of us because all of us are children of God. And that's the tale of two cities that I'm seeing right now. There's, there's a Minneapolis that is enduring deep violence, and then there's a Minneapolis that is rediscovering what God had wanted us to remember all along, that we belong to each other and that we should care for each other. Yeah, I think that there are some folks, some cynical folks who could hear that story about the donor and say, "Well, yeah, but that wasn't God moving. That was people moving." But I just gotta name that, like, I've been at this for— I've been at ministry for about 10 years, and I have I've worked on a lot of projects, and I've cared for a lot of different families in a lot of different situations, including during the George Floyd uprisings. And this type of coordination and mobilization and resurrection, frankly, is only possible because of God. Because I've seen how slow these processes can go other times, and I've seen how many families don't get their rent paid during crises in other times.
Tyler Sit [00:22:01]:
So when I witness this, it feels like I have a front row seat to God moving in the world. And it's something that will permanently change my ministry.
Ryan Dunn [00:22:10]:
We're recording this in the middle of February. Supposedly things are drawing down a little bit, probably in any case, whether that's the truth or not, things are reaching a sense of, I don't know, rhythm within Minneapolis. Do you get an impression that that there will be a return to life as it was before? Or if not, how is life in Minneapolis going to be different in, say, a year?
Tyler Sit [00:22:40]:
So first, I want to name for any listeners who are listening still close to the date of recording that Minnesotans are very skeptical about language around a drawdown or drawback because this is the same leadership that has told us stories about violence in the city that directly contradicts video evidence of that violence. We heard that during Renee Goode. We've heard that during Alex Predi. So while we would certainly welcome a drawdown, we're just— everyone I know is in a posture of, "I'll believe it when I see it," not because we don't deeply want it, but because We've had chaos injected into our city on every level over the past month-plus, and it's hard to know how to move forward from that. So that's kind of on a meta level, but in terms of the city of Minneapolis moving forward, you know, Mayor Frey calculated, I think it was $250 million. The city of Minneapolis has lost over $200 million over the course of this surge because of the loss of business, because of the stress that it's put on social services, school systems having to shift to distance learning instead of having— So I don't know exactly what it looks like to recoup hundreds of million dollars that were bled out of the city over the course of a month. But I do know that Minneapolis as a cultural fabric feels more resilient than it ever has. And I honestly think that some of that is because of the lessons that we learned during the uprisings 5 years ago, the George Floyd uprisings.
Tyler Sit [00:24:34]:
During the George Floyd uprisings, neighbors exchanged numbers, and there was kind of a deeper sense of, like, how are we going to look out for each other just on a practical level? Like, how are we going to make sure that business our houses are safe, or that our neighbors are safe, or that our kids are safe. And so we were able to kind of reanimate those systems now during the occupation, and it has allowed us to be more resilient on a ministry level. And so I don't know what the future of Minneapolis exactly looks like, but I do know that we've put together systems and tools and relationships that will allow us to be more resilient no matter what comes down the line. Because we're in communication and in relationship with each other, which ultimately is the deepest desire of God, I believe. You know, just as a side example, so a lot of, so a lot of people are using different apps to communicate with each other. Signal is one of the apps that we're using, and Signal, which is an encrypted text messaging app, has a limit of 1,000 people. So a group, a group can't be larger than 1,000 people. For a Signal Group.
Tyler Sit [00:25:48]:
And I know, for example, the resistance choir, the singers who are going around, is now on their 8th Signal Group because over 7,000 people have joined together to join this effort, and they keep making more. So it's kind of, like, mind-blowing to even think of the scale of this. But the ways that we've learned how to organize together and stay in touch with each other is something that I hope continues even when we're not facing the type of crisis that we were facing before.
Ryan Dunn [00:26:21]:
In this teaching series that you're going through on Acts, how far into it are you? Like, are several, like 15 chapters? Where are we at?
Tyler Sit [00:26:31]:
Where, what's going on? So it's a, we're doing a 90-day read through the New Testament. And so it's, it's, we're in Acts right now, but we're just in the part where Peter had the vision, the threefold vision of a sheet coming down with with the different animals on it and God saying, do not call unclean what I have determined as clean, which also kind of feels like it resonates with some of the things that we're seeing in the city, you know?
Ryan Dunn [00:26:58]:
Yeah. Oh, what? So just one of those random serendipitous moments. I just read that verse yesterday for a different project I was working on. I'm going to have to go back and read again because like Apparently, Holy Spirit's saying, like Ryan, there's still something yet to be learned in this moment that I need to look at.
Tyler Sit [00:27:17]:
God's up to.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:21]:
Something. God's up to something. My reason for asking about Acts, though, is that I'm just wondering— Acts is about the sort of the inception of the church, the moving forward of the church. They sometimes call it the birthing of the church. And I'm wondering if this moment in the ways that people have come together and really offered support to one another, if that has in some way refreshed the way in which you look at what the church was doing through the Acts narrative.
Tyler Sit [00:27:51]:
Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, it honestly, I'll just use I statements like this experience has broken open my anthropology. It is redefining what I believe human, what I am now knowing that human beings are capable of, frankly, from both directions, the, the violence and the cruelty that human beings are capable of, as well as the incredible peace, joy, and love that is possible through people rising together. So yeah, I think when I used to read Acts 2 or Acts 4, you know, those stories about the believers shared everything and people who had land sold the land so that all their needs could be met and they were worshiping and joyful, I was kind of like, I'm like, "That seems like an exaggeration." Like, there's no— there's no way. [Speaker:DAVID] Did they really sell it? [Speaker:ELLIE] Did they really do that? Like, what? And, you know, like, yeah, that's a nice horizon to move towards is kind of how I thought about it. But I'm seeing it in real time here in Minneapolis. Like, I'm seeing people live into Acts 4 without even necessarily deeply knowing each other.
Tyler Sit [00:29:04]:
Like, there are ways— Ryan, it's so hard to describe the feeling of like people being in a group together. And people, a common thing is that people are using code names in groups because there, we also know that there are people infiltrating Signal groups and doxxing people in the group. And so, so it's hard to describe like people naming needs that they have. Like I have a family who needs groceries tonight, or does anyone have a line for an emergency dentist, that kind of thing. And they're naming that as someone who has a code name, and then they get 10 responses from people who also have code names of people who are sacrificially willing for, like, to meet those needs without even seeing their face or knowing their name. And, like, that to me is the vision of what God has for how we can live together. And frankly, like, it also showed to me how important a local worship community is, because we are the holders of these rituals and traditions and practices that are helping people to ground themselves in the immutable love that is God, in the midst of some really terrible things. And that immutable love is what is enabling us to minister to people that we may not even know.
Tyler Sit [00:30:25]:
And so like it's changing my vision of ministry because it's raising the bar of what we can expect from the human society. And honestly, it's also showing me a juxtaposition of just using I statements again. Like, I am aware of how conditioned I've been to be individualistic and selfish by Western society, how like my insistence on comfort and the ability to withdraw from other people is something that that I've been conditioned to internalize again and again and again. And it took a crisis like this to rupture me out of even those kind of conditioned habits and realize that life is so much better when we can build community together. And that to me is an inbreaking of the Holy Spirit as well.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:16]:
Yeah, well, tell me about that a little bit, that sort of rupturing out and moving away from the, I guess, isolation really is what it is. It's not so much individuality as much as it is isolation.
Tyler Sit [00:31:27]:
That's a good point.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:30]:
Yeah. Painful process? Is it— I think a lot of us fear that it's like, I'm just going to long to be back to the way that things were before. Do you wish to go back to the way things were before?
Tyler Sit [00:31:42]:
I do not wish to go back to the way that things were before, emphatically. I, if anything, we're seeing truly how the way that things were before was also an unsustainable fiction, you know, and we have to to create a new way. So yeah, I want to name that when I name community, I don't necessarily mean extroversion. So like, I'm an extrovert, but there— Minneapolis is a famously introverted city, and there are many people at New City Church who are intensely introverted. And sociologically, just a little peek behind the curtain, the reason why that is, is because we have a winter that could last from 4 to 8 months. And that means that we have to get really good at being at home by ourselves because Like, sometimes we're snowed in. And so, like, yeah, introverts thrive in Minneapolis because it's— there's space to read and there's space to really think things through and there's whatever. But community means that we're showing up for each other based off of what God has put into our hands to share, not we're showing up for each other based off of extracting something that we don't have.
Tyler Sit [00:32:49]:
And so I know lots of introverts who are like, I am not going to be doing the people-facing side of this, but I would love to wash laundry for families who relied on the laundromat who can't go to the laundromat now, and they're gonna do that. Or introverts who are like, I'm not going to be tabling at an event that has hundreds, a vigil that has hundreds of people at it that I have to do a lot of small talk on. But if there's just like a small handful of people that I can go deep with or have a contemplative conversation with, like that is what, that's what I'm willing to give, or that's what God has given me to share. So yeah, I think that part of what the crisis allowed us to see is what God has put in our hands to share and how truly it was never ours to hang on to in the first place. So yeah, I think that that has been helpful. Even small things, Ryan, like instead of driving home on 26th, I'm going to drive home on Lake because Lake has more immigrant businesses and I just want to have an extra pair of eyes on the street just to make sure that folks are okay. You know, it's just little, little lifestyle adjustments that's like, well, wait a second, why weren't we doing this all along? You know, like, why weren't we aware of which businesses are immigrant-owned businesses that we could support? Like, of course we want to do that. That's aligned with our values.
Tyler Sit [00:34:15]:
And it just feels like kind of a fresh air gust is moving through an open window that was closed before, you know?
Ryan Dunn [00:34:24]:
Well, I appreciate you offering those actionable items that people can do because it begins to help paint a picture for those of us who are maybe geographically removed and yet still want to be invested in the processes of support and even the processes of resistance against what we consider to be some unjust policies and policing. Do you have any maybe additional advice that maybe people who are hundreds of miles away can enact in terms of like how they might either provide provide support to the people in Minnesota or just to be active in this situation abroad?
Tyler Sit [00:35:09]:
Absolutely. So if you're listening, and certainly if you're listening and you're a United Methodist, there are immigrant ministries in your conference. There are immigrant churches or fellowships or ministries, or there are collaborations happening outside of shared buildings. This is, this is a great time to start building relationships of trust and collaboration. And the way that I kind of think about it is like, what is the relationship that I will be glad I've invested in regardless of what happens with immigration enforcement? You know, like it's what is, what is the type of networking that is just like the infrastructure that I've been meaning to get around to? And maybe this is kind of an extra push to build that infrastructure. So relationships are key. Relationships are everything. The resilience that we're seeing here all hinge on relationships, continuing to develop those relationships with immigrant churches, immigrant ministries, but also like that immigrant-owned business that's down the street from your church, the immigrant-led initiatives that are in your city.
Tyler Sit [00:36:15]:
Like, you don't have to become the deepest, like, you don't have to dedicate 40 hours a week to making this happen, you know, like, but if you can just have a meaningful enough connection that you— that when they are facing something challenging, they know how to get in touch with you. And when you are seeing something, you know how to get in touch with them. So like, that's one piece of advice I'd have. And to the immigrants who are listening, or the leaders of immigrant congregations who are listening, I think that doing an audit of who your trusted connections are and developing and establishing relationships with people who are worthy of the trust that, that you could give them is something that is, I think that immigrant populations have always had to do, but I think now is a really good time to establish that. I say this as the child of an immigrant who witnessed his dad also try to make these types of survival connections all over the place. So, so shout out to immigrants as well. So that's one thing I would name. The second thing I would name is even if it doesn't look like Operation Metro Surge, There is immigration enforcement happening all over the country.
Tyler Sit [00:37:26]:
People are being detained all over the country, and people are experiencing tragedies like what I talked about with Alberto all over the country. So I think that it's worthwhile to get a pulse for what's happening in your community and start some early conversations of what it would look like if something like Operation Metro Surge ratcheted up that, that pressure in in your own community. So I'm really inspired by pastors who are preemptively getting together with other pastors and saying, if our community starts looking like Minneapolis January 2026, what are we going to do? How— who are we going to be together, and how are we going to support each other? So that's something that really inspires me. And again, those are networks that are valuable, whether it's because an ICE surge is coming or because there was a literal winter storm that created like physical ice that is preventing you from getting into church. Like, so that's, that's important. What I want to really advise people away from though, is responses of scarcity, distrust, or fear. I think it's really easy in these moments to kind of get caught up in the panic of this or to start prepping your end of the world bunker or getting into the— and I just, I think that that same energy applied to relationships is going to yield much, much more resilience than kind of doomsday prepping or anything like that. Really investing in connection instead of bunker prepping, I think is very— you know what I mean?
Ryan Dunn [00:39:09]:
Like, this isn't the moment to write the world off.
Tyler Sit [00:39:12]:
No, no.
Ryan Dunn [00:39:14]:
How we achieve, I guess, an eschatological end, right?
Tyler Sit [00:39:19]:
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't think God wants us to react to violence with isolation, period. Like, I just don't think that's, that's what we see in Jesus's life or ministry. That's not what we read in the Pauline letters. So, like, I think that allowing this to motivate people to lean in is, is where the Holy Spirit is leading us right now.
Ryan Dunn [00:39:41]:
Tyler, thank you so much for offering that leading to us and for sharing the stories. I appreciate so much that your practice of ministry probably feels different and therefore a little bit chaotic right now. So I appreciate you making the time to share the witness with us.
Tyler Sit [00:39:57]:
I'm so grateful to be on this podcast, and I'm praying for everyone who's listening to this podcast that wherever God is leading you, that you might feel inspired by a spirit of peace and joy.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:10]:
Awesome.
Tyler Sit [00:40:11]:
Yes.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:12]:
Need more Reverend Tyler Sit in your life? Of course you do. So check out episode 60 from May of 2021. I think that episode 169 with Bishop Julius Trimble would also be a great follow-up to this episode. In that episode 169, we talked again about faith, politics, and about how taking a stand and working in compassion can be issues of faith, not issues of partisanship. While you're listening, leave a rating and/or review. The Compass Podcast is brought to you by United Methodist Communications. That's all for this week. We'll be back with a new episode in 2 weeks, so I will chat at you then.
Tyler Sit [00:40:51]:
Peace.
