Stories of Uprising: A Project with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, 2020

This proposal describes a collaborative ethnographic story project with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN, gathering accounts of leaders', members', neighbors', and volunteers' experiences of the uprising after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

During the uprising after George Floyd’s murder, the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis became a hub of protest with the Third Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department at its center. Due to destruction of businesses and institutions in the uprising (such as grocery stores and pharmacies; Gandhi Mahal, a restaurant known for its sustainable and equitable business practices; and MIGIZI, an educational non-profit organization supporting American Indian youth), this neighborhood became a goods, services, and resources desert overnight. The diverse residents of Longfellow had little possibility of relief. About 40% of residents in this multicultural community live below, at, or near the poverty line; few had access to transportation outside the neighborhood because buses and light rail were shut down, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and partly in response to the uprising.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church—a half block from the precinct—re-opened its doors during protests after several months of social distancing during the pandemic outbreak. The church filled a gap in Longfellow initially as an ad hoc medic station for protestors, and then as an emergency pantry for neighbors, and later as COVID testing site for the Twin Cities. Chaplains wandered the grounds and surrounding neighborhood, providing spiritual and emotional support during a traumatic time. Holy Trinity even began to tend a perpetual flame for MIGIZI, captured from the fire that burned their building and protected by the church until MIGIZI could rebuild (Holy Trinity returned the flame to MIGIZI in October 2023). Financial and in-kind donations flooded into the church from across the cities, state, and indeed world as people learned about the challenges the neighborhood faced; online donations with the memo line “justice” were directed exclusively to attending community needs.

The re-opening of Holy Trinity was a theological and moral act—an act of “lived theology”—rooted in the Christian faith commitments of church leaders and members.[1] In turn, the re-opening of the church led leaders and members (in conversation with neighbors and volunteers from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds) to reflect on “the actions of God in [their] experience[s]” as well as their “understanding of the social consequences of theological ideas.”[2] In describing the re-opening of the church as an act of lived theology, the researcher is not claiming that leaders and members first discerned what their faith commitments required of them based on doctrinal, moral, or scriptural analysis and then “applied”  those commitments to their situation. Rather, leaders and members—already shaped by their tradition and community—acted in an urgent and unprecedented situation, and their actions constituted a living out of their theology. Their actions then contributed to the development of their faith commitments and their understanding of what those commitments require for continued action beyond the uprising.

This paper will share the creative research methodologies used to document and collect the stories of uprising of Holy Trinity leaders, members, neighbors, and volunteers (i.e., the project stakeholders). The core questions of the project are, How do the responses of members and leaders of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church to the injustice of George Floyd’s murder, as well as their activation as a community resource hub in the subsequent uprising, embody their lived theology? How does reflection on those experiences continue to shape their theology now, in the ongoing life of their church? How do neighbors and volunteers experience Holy Trinity's embodiment of its lived theology? To explore the lived theology of Holy Trinity, the researcher designed a collaborative ethnographic story project in partnership with stakeholders at Holy Trinity to document how leaders and members understood their experiences and actions theologically, as well as how their theologies were deepened and transformed in light of their circumstances. The project also invited volunteers and neighbors who are not members of Holy Trinity to reflect on their experiences at a time of crisis when the doors of the church were flung wide open.

This project involved the development of a paper and digital workbook for participants to reflect on their experiences; facilitation of small story sharing groups; and one-on-one interviews captured in audio and video recording. The researcher also set up an audio recording booth in which participants could interview each other (akin to StoryCorps). In addition, the project collected photographs for an exhibit in which viewers were asked to connect their own experiences to the photographs by creating their own captions. Beyond these strategies, the researcher compiled digital resources such as social media posts, recordings of virtual worship services, and blogs to archive stories shared by participants at the time of the uprising. The researcher is developing creative methods for sharing the project, including a monograph, website, podcasts, and a short documentary. The materials collected in the project will be preserved in the Holy Trinity historical archive. With the archive and methods of dissemination, the intent of the project is to ensure accessibility of the materials beyond an academic audience.

In presenting this paper, the researcher anticipates being able to share with the audience the photo exhibit and website. In addition, the researcher will share the workbook and script for story sharing groups, as well as links to portions of podcasts and the documentary. These pieces should provide participants examples of the range of platforms, technologies, and strategies employed in this collaborative ethnographic story project.

[1] Charles Marsh, “Introduction—Lived Theology: Method, Style, and Pedagogy,” in Lived Theology: New Perspectives on Method, Style, and Pedagogy, Charles Marsh, Peter Slad, and Sarah Azaransky, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

[2] Ibid., 7.