City Unconstitutionally Targets Churches, Criminally Citing Pastors for Gathering in Public Park – ACLJ Takes Action

For more than four years, three local churches in Colorado peacefully gathered every Tuesday and Thursday at a public park to do what Scripture commands: worship, pray, study Scripture, and share meals in Christian fellowship. They exercised their constitutionally protected right to freely practice their faith in a traditional public forum – a right that has been guaranteed to Americans since our nation’s founding.

Then the City of Northglenn decided their religious exercise was a problem, going so far as criminally citing the pastors for exercising their constitutionally protected rights to religion, speech, and assembly.

The ACLJ is taking legal action, representing four church members, including two pastors. We will be filing a federal lawsuit to defend these pastors and their constitutional right to freely exercise their faith in a public park and to defend them against their criminal citations. This case represents yet another disturbing example of government hostility toward religious expression – and we won’t stand for it.

Take action with us as we defend these churches, and add your name to our petition: Defeat the Left’s War Against Christians.

Four Years of Church Ministry Suddenly “Illegal”

Since July 2020, pastors and members from local churches, including Brent Denney and David McCamish, who are members of Brave Church, and Pastor Dustin Mackintosh from Next Step Christian Church, have led weekly ministry gatherings at E.B. Rains, Jr. Memorial Park. These weren’t rowdy events or disruptive protests. They were peaceful religious gatherings centered on worship, prayer, Bible study, fellowship, and Christian charity, including providing food to the homeless.

For four years, there were no complaints, no incidents, and no problems. The churches used the park’s pavilions on a first-come, first-served basis, just like any other group. The ministry operated without any objection from city officials.

Then, in the summer of 2024, everything changed. The chief of police informed the pastors he had been “tasked with shutting down” their weekly gatherings. City officials called a private meeting with representatives from the churches and made the city’s position clear: They liked what the churches were doing, but they couldn’t do it in Northglenn. The city’s objection wasn’t to the size of the gatherings or any actual disruption. Their objection was to who the churches were serving and why they were doing it – because of their religious conviction to follow Christ’s command to serve “the least of these.”

Pastors Criminally Cited Under Targeted Ordinance

Rather than respect these churches’ First Amendment rights, the City of Northglenn enacted Resolution CR-54 in June 2025, specifically designed to shut down religious gatherings. The new ordinance prohibits groups of five or more from using park pavilions and outdoor spaces on a recurring basis.

On September 18, the city made its hostility unmistakable: Officers issued criminal citations to some of the pastors and other individuals, directing them to appear in court. When officers arrived, they didn’t just ask about group size – they specifically inquired about church membership, asking, “How many people are part of your church?” This reveals the true target: not group gatherings in general, but religious gatherings specifically. One of the pastors given a citation wasn’t even participating in the religious gathering at the time but was sitting nearby. But because he was the pastor of one of the churches involved, he was still cited.

The selective enforcement is staggering. While these pastors face citations, numerous other groups continue using the same park without interference: adult daycare groups, walking clubs, pickleball groups, and fitness classes that meet multiple times per week. The churches are not aware of any of these groups having been cited. The city’s own senior fitness program met at the park four times in three days – far exceeding any reasonable definition of “recurring use” – yet faced no consequences.

The pattern is clear: Secular gatherings are fine. Religious gatherings are targeted.

This Is Religious Discrimination, Plain and Simple

The evidence of unconstitutional targeting is overwhelming. City officials held exclusive meetings with the religious leaders to discuss shutting down their ministry. Officers recorded which churches the pastors represented during the citation process – information that would be irrelevant if this were truly about neutral enforcement of group size restrictions.

This pattern mirrors the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, where the Court struck down ordinances specifically designed to suppress religious practices while allowing comparable secular conduct. When a law targets religious exercise while permitting similar secular activities, it violates the Free Exercise Clause and must satisfy strict scrutiny – a standard the City of Northglenn cannot possibly meet.

Even setting aside the blatant religious targeting, the ordinance is also unconstitutionally overbroad. A five-person threshold in a park designed to accommodate 600+ people simultaneously cannot be considered “monopolization” by any reasonable standard. The prohibition sweeps in vast amounts of protected speech and assembly: weekly family picnics, monthly Scout meetings, prayer groups, book clubs, and countless other harmless gatherings. Even if the city could constitutionally address some legitimate concern about facility access, it cannot do so through a law that also targets and punishes ordinary, protected activity on such a massive scale. Ironically, the very people Northglenn should be trying to protect for park access, families with children, for example, are now being banned.

The ACLJ’s Ongoing Fight for Religious Liberty

This case represents ACLJ’s broader mission to defend pastors, churches, and religious organizations facing government hostility. We’ve successfully defended street preachers, challenged unconstitutional restrictions on worship, and fought back against discriminatory treatment of religious groups nationwide. Time and again, we’ve seen government officials attempt to silence or suppress religious expression – and time and again, we’ve defeated them in court. We will be filing soon at the Supreme Court, defending a church’s right to meet.

Time and again, we’ve seen government officials attempt to silence or suppress religious expression – and time and again, we’ve defeated them in court. The Northglenn case follows a familiar pattern: officials targeting religious gatherings while giving secular activities a free pass, using facially neutral rules as a pretext for religious discrimination.

We represent these pastors because their cause is just and their rights are clear. They have done nothing wrong. They’ve simply gathered to worship, pray, and minister the Gospel in a public park – activities protected by the very first words of the First Amendment.

The criminal citations against these pastors remain active. Despite pausing future enforcement, the city has refused to dismiss the citations. These faithful servants still face the prospect of criminal conviction for the “crime” of gathering to worship in a public space.

We will not let that stand. The ACLJ is not only defending these pastors in criminal court to have these blatantly unconstitutional charges dismissed, but we are also preparing to file a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this discriminatory ordinance. Religious liberty is not negotiable, and we will fight to ensure that churches can continue their vital ministry without fear of government persecution.