September - October 2010

Editorial Rick Wood, Editor

What happens when missionaries teach that the only way of salvation is for a people to completely reject their own culture and accept the "Christian" culture of the missionary? What is the result of not understanding God’s love for all peoples and His plan for every tribe and tongue to worship and glorify God in all of their uniqueness? One answer is the disastrous history of the Native peoples of North America. download pdf of this story

"I was made to burn and destroy all my tribal carvings, eagle feathers, and my dance outfit because the pastor told me now that I was a Christian, old things passed away and all things became new, which meant all my Native cultural ways needed to be replaced with Euro-American cultural ways. Then I was told I could no longer participate in our Native gatherings, dances or ceremonies because they were of the devil and full of idolatry. They even told me my Native drum was an idol and full of spirits, so I burned it and learned the guitar instead. Now I am no longer a Native in my culture. I am an anglicized Christian in American culture. The Bible has been used to colonize my soul." download pdf of this story

Sweat Lodge Article Dot Everett

Numerous Native American tribes use a sweat lodge ceremony as a place of prayer, dedication and worship. The Lakota people call it the inipi ceremony. As a spiritual tradition, it has been controversial for Europeans for over three centuries. That a counterfeit sweat lodge has been in the news recently is no surprise. download pdf of this story

I am Dakelh from the Bear Clan in Nadleh Whut En, an Athabaskan Carrier tribe in Northern British Columbia, Canada. I was baptized a Catholic and came to a personal faith in Jesus Christ when I was eight years old. My own spiritual journey has led me to be a pastor and recording artist and to attend Bible college and seminary. download pdf of this story

The Journey of "Hole in the Clouds" Casey Church (Hole in the Clouds), Pokagon Band of Potawatomi

My journey began in the spring of 1988 while working with the Indian Workers Conference of the United Methodist Church in Michigan. Here I accepted God’s call to help lead a new approach to evangelize Native Americans. I learned all I could about the spiritual and religious ways of the Native peoples while pursuing a Bachelors degree in Cultural Anthropology. God made known to me His desire to see Native people find faith and freedom in Jesus within their own culture. Now I truly felt God accepting me as a Native American Christian. Before this time I strived to please God from another culture’s religious expectations. download pdf of this story

Healing the Sacred Hoop Fern Marie Cloud

My Dakota name is Aikipawin, which means Branch Woman. I am the great-great granddaughter of Dakota Chief Little Crow. I was full of hatred for white people, the Church and God. I came to be a follower of Jesus on December 8, 1978. Creator used a near-death experience and the testimony of Native believers to finally break down my resistance to His love. download pdf of this story

Four hundred years ago on June 24, Chief Henri Membertou, along with 20-33 other Mi’kmaq tribal members, was baptized into the French Jesuit faith. The monument marking this historic occasion stands today on the Listuguj reserve in the Gaspé peninsula of the province of Quebec, Canada. Unfortunately, though the marker is real, the events it commemorates are remote to the contemporary experience of the vast majority of Mi’kmaq people. download pdf of this story

It was April, 2001 in Cottonwood, Arizona. For the first time in our lives, my wife Jan and I experienced a worship service where Native American instruments and traditional regalia were allowed. The worship was so powerful that many Native people shared how this newfound freedom, freedom to worship Jesus as the people God created them to be, had touched their hearts. This threeday conference with Richard Twiss, Mary Glazier and the guys from Broken Walls changed the course of my life and our ministry. download pdf of this story

Marginalia Dave Datema

"Welcome to my country," he said with a gleam in his eye as he shook my hand. I was attending a powwow here in Pasadena, and the irony of the greeting was not lost on me. He represented the original inhabitants of this country who have lived here for millennia, and I represented the settlers who came only recently. Perhaps irony is second only to tragedy as the best word to describe the Christian mission to Native Americans. It is a history of mixed motives and contradictory impulses; the worst of human greed and the best of human love intertwined with a critical error: the belief that Christian community could not exist apart from European culture. download pdf of this story

Two years ago I was sitting in the office with my co-worker at Every Ethne. It was just the two of us. Our vision? To be a resource for individuals, specifically college students across Iowa who desire to impact every ethnic people group on the planet. How were we going to do this? What was our strategy? Quite simple, really: plug into existing ministries to come alongside, assist and help their mission-minded students keep that vision in front of them. Our desire is the same as the leaders of these ministries: we want to see people become great disciplemakers. download pdf of this story

The key reason to develop a “perspective” as a globalvision Christian is to understand the world as God sees it. But a razor-sharp biblical perspective is not static, and you really cannot just stand by as a spectator. To see what God sees, and to value what God values, is so compelling and inviting that probably the most dangerous response is to do nothing. A true vision of the Triune Sending God’s mission thrusts you into the middle of all that He is doing throughout the world and all history. download pdf of this story

On May 31, 2010 a local, private Afghan TV station, Noorin TV, showed video clips on the evening news program in Kabul of Afghans worshiping and being baptized in the name of Jesus. The TV station continued to air these video clips for the next week in an apparent attempt to incite a fundamentalist Islamic outcry against these Afghan citizens who would dare to deviate from the national religion of Islam. download pdf of this story

When it comes to the dependency syndrome, much of our success or failure can be traced to the assumptions with which we begin. A colleague in WMA ministry, Jean Johnson, says it this way: “What we do on day one [of our ministry] affects day 100, and day 1,000 and day 10,000.” The assumptions with which we begin are like small, self-fulfilling prophesies that point us toward success or failure in the long-term. Proverbs 23:7 reminds us that as someone thinks in his heart, so is he. download pdf of this story

How can something be God’s sovereign will and also be a big mistake? While heart-wrenching to us, we know God is glorified through suffering. While we can’t understand, it can galvanize believers to pray and seek God to turn this to advance the gospel. download pdf of this story