This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2026
I want to encourage all of you to pray for Cities Church in St. Paul. This is the church located in the Twin Cities area that, on Sunday, January 18, became the site of a disruptive protest against ICE. Please specifically pray for Pastor Jonathan Parnell, the lead pastor of this congregation, who is stuck in the middle of a controversy he had nothing to do with.
The reason this church was targeted is that claims circulated online that one of the associate pastors serves as a director of ICE operations in the Twin Cities. I have no idea if that is true, and frankly, I don’t care—there is nothing contradictory about a man who serves both his Lord through his church and his community through federal law enforcement. Those two callings fit together seamlessly. However, for the point I want to make here, whether or not an associate pastor is an ICE officer is irrelevant.
What I want to address is the decision by a group of people to take it upon themselves to disrupt a sacred church service. One of the individuals participating in this disruption was disgraced former CNN reporter Don Lemon. Think what you want about Lemon’s past antics; what he did here was not only morally abhorrent but also illegal.
This group of agitators showed up and, once the service was underway, began shouting anti-ICE slogans to drown out the worship. When church leadership politely asked them to leave, they responded by claiming they had a “right” to be there to protest. Let me explain why Don Lemon and this group were dead wrong.
Churches are protected under what is known as the “Lloyd Corp Principle.” This is based on the 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Lloyd\ Corp.\ v.\ Tanner. In that case, Vietnam War protesters were distributing fliers in a private mall and refused to leave when security asked. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that property owners have the absolute right to remove protesters from their premises.
The ruling in Lloyd\ Corp.\ v.\ Tanner established the principle of Limited Invitation. This means that when you enter a business or a church, you do so under the implied invitation of the owner. That invitation is controlled solely by the property owner and can be revoked at any time, for any reason.
When Pastor Parnell and the other leaders of Cities Church asked the protesters to leave—which they did with extreme politeness—those disruptors were under a legal obligation to exit immediately. By remaining and continuing to shout over the service, they were in violation of trespass laws. Eventually, the service had to be canceled entirely because the protesters refused to allow it to continue.
What did Cities Church have to do with the federal law enforcement tactics these people are angry about? Absolutely nothing. The bottom line is that these agitators showed up to make a scene, and they got exactly what they wanted, with Don Lemon documenting the entire thing via livestream.
I watched as much of the footage as I could stomach. At one point, Lemon got in the face of Pastor Parnell and began badgering him with questions. What was this pastor supposed to know about ICE operations? Nothing. Rev. Parnell simply kept asking them to leave so the congregation could worship. As the crowd pressed in, Lemon even had the nerve to tell Rev. Parnell to “stop pushing” him. I’m sure the people watching the livestream enjoyed that staged drama.
Rev. Parnell was not even the pastor alleged to be involved with ICE—and again, I wouldn’t care if he was. What happened was despicable. At one point, Lemon even pointed out a crying child in the sanctuary and remarked that “everyone should be that uncomfortable.” That child was likely the only person in the room less responsible for the situation than Pastor Parnell himself.
There is clear video footage of this outrage. I hope the people identified in those videos are pursued with the same intensity as those who entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021. I want to see Don Lemon and this line of thugs held accountable. Contrary to what Lemon seems to believe, you do not get to do whatever you want. It is time for real consequences for the lawbreaking in Minnesota.