Minnesota minister rediscovers his faith among people in need
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In every corner of Minnesota, there are good stories waiting to be told of places that make our state great and people who in Walt Whitman’s words “contribute a verse” each day. That's the theme of our series “Wander & Wonder: Exploring Minnesota’s unexpected places.”
Life was lovely for the Rev. Devlyn Brooks. In the embrace of his rural Wilkin County ministry and its rituals — singing hymns, reading the liturgy and starting the Sunday service with a greeting — he felt happy and comfortable.
Then last year, he started to question it all.
Hired as the CEO of Churches United, a nonprofit that operates a shelter, food pantry and affordable housing units, Brooks saw close-up the suffering of people who lived just a 30-minute drive from his church, and it shook him.
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"We don't like to be told that we're selfish or that there's something wrong with being selfish,” Brooks, 51, said recently as he greeted people in the dining room at Micah’s Mission, a Churches United emergency shelter in Moorhead.
“We don't like that message, because, quite frankly, the last 50 years of Christianity has tried to convince people that the most important thing is your own prosperity and your salvation,” he said. “I'd be OK if we shuttered the doors to all of our churches and said, ‘You know what? Spend Sunday at the mission.’”
Startled to discover he wasn’t practicing what he preaches, he decided to act. That’s helped transform him, his ministry and the success of Churches United.
‘Taught me what the Gospel is’
Brooks didn’t have a lot of time for spiritual reflection when he took over Churches United in August 2024. The organization was in a financial crisis.
His first day at work he learned there wasn’t enough money to make payroll. He helped rally the Fargo-Moorhead community to raise the money to keep the doors open. He was moved by the generosity of contributions large and small.
"You know that there is a story behind somebody that just mailed you in a wad of 11 $1 bills,” he said. “Or somebody that gave online, and it's $8.73. I will never, ever say I'm ungrateful for those gifts. “
The organization is doing more work with fewer staff members now, but finances are stable.
Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the bigger picture — the overwhelming needs of people without shelter. That comfortable Lutheran church ministry he loved seemed disconnected from reality.
A former journalist, Brooks writes a weekly column about faith. To mark the one-year anniversary of his job at Churches United, he wrote that his work with the shelter, “has given me a pretty good window into where our priorities lie. And I can tell you that they’re most certainly not based on the Gospel.”
He believes that modern Christianity has been “contorted … to make faith about ourselves."
Turning faith inward, Brooks said, causes people to ask what the church, the government, their neighbors, can do for them, not what they can do for others. "We have less grace” because of that, he said. “We have less tolerance, we have less patience."
Brooks brings this message of misplaced faith whenever he’s asked to speak in churches on behalf of the homeless ministry. He knows it makes people uncomfortable.
‘Good to be challenged’
As he moves through the dining room at the Micah’s Mission shelter in Moorhead, Brooks greets people with a big smile. He asks about family, school and if they need anything.
He explains that he gets far more than he gives from serving people who can’t repay him.
"Their gratitude for what they receive here, that's what taught me what the Gospel is," he said.
And for him, the Gospel has been simplified. “The very singular commandment is that loving your neighbor is equal to loving God,” he said. "It's how the love is exhibited in that care of the community."
People at his church — Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. — have seen him change.
Brooks “seems to be a more compassionate person” after months spent as CEO of Churches United, and that “comes over into his preaching,” said Wayne Krump, president of Faith Lutheran.
Brooks “cares more about others than himself,” said Krump, 61, who farms near Kent in Wilkin County and has attended Faith Lutheran for about 20 years. “We all want to stay in our comfort zone,” he added, “but it’s good to be challenged.”
Krump thinks the rural church is becoming more aware of outreach in its own small community.
Looking back, Brooks feels like his faith was performative, like something put on for Sunday.
But now it feels real.
"For the first time ever, I'm very comfortable living in the skin of Pastor Devlyn,” he said. “I wear it and I'm comfortable in it, and I'm unapologetically the pastor that says, ‘You know what, maybe we're not doing this right.’”
Editor’s note: A year ago, we sent Dan Gunderson on a mission to find great stories and compelling people in unexpected places across Minnesota. He did so much more. He transformed Wander & Wonder into MPR News’ most popular feature. W&W continues, but this is Dan’s last story. He’s retiring. We’re grateful to have worked with him.
