KAY DeMOSS
Senior Editor-Writer, Michigan Area
Native American Ministries Sunday is April 19. But this year Native American Awareness will stretch far beyond one hour of worship in congregations around the Michigan Area.
“I want people to consider Native American Ministries with a present and future lens,” says the Rev. Dr. Jerome (Jerry) DeVine, “not just with a view to the romanticized past.” Jerry, the Director of Connectional Ministries for the Detroit Conference, has been named by Bishop Deborah Lieder Kiesey to convene a newly formed design team.
Their task is to plan an Act of Repentance toward Reconciliation to be observed during the 2016 Session of the Detroit and West Michigan Annual Conferences held in East Lansing June 8-13. The event will take place during shared time on Friday.
Members of the team have been selected from both annual conferences. Further, the team will stay in conversation with the Committee on Native American Ministries of the Detroit Conference (CONAM) and West Michigan’s Indian Workers Conference.
So this year’s Native American Ministries Sunday is not a finish line but a starting point that will begin a string of activities and opportunities for transformation. “When we talk about an act of repentance toward reconciliation with indigenous people, we should not look for a quick fix and then move on,” Jerry notes. He describes the coming months as a time to rethink and to relearn some misinformed understandings of U.S. and Michigan history. “We may even have to rethink our understanding of church history,” he adds.
Jerry points out that the Act of Repentance toward Reconciliation is not all about guilt. “In the Bible to repent is to pause long enough to reconsider our attitudes, perceptions and behavior.” It’s about what Jerry calls an inter-cultural competency spectrum. “We must move past denial and stereotypes to a place where we can see difference as gift and something to be learned from. That opens all of us up to new possibilities as we appreciate each other as part of the fabric of The United Methodist Church,” Jerry explains.
Native American Awareness founded on relationship will take time. First, “We must do a deeper level of self-examination in order to enter a new covenant with each other,” Jerry says. “We must be willing to recognize that historical behaviors of our government and church have made it difficult for Native Americans to enjoy fullness of life.”
Jerry will be present at both 2015 Annual Conferences to invite them on this journey designed to prepare the hearts and minds of Michigan United Methodists to be ready for the experience in 2016. A year of preparation is necessary. Jerry tells how some Native Americans are asking, “Why are you doing this? Are you going to change? Will this make a difference?” So it is his intent “that we go deep together in these coming months so that we do not cause further harm. We as the dominant culture have work to do.”
Plans for 2016 so far include a ceremonial procession into the space followed by a time of worship. The Keynote speaker will be the Rev. Glen Chebon Kernell, Jr. from the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. A member of the Seminole nation, Kernell is the Executive Secretary of Native American and Indigenous Ministries, Justice and Relationships for the General Board of Global Ministries. Currently he is working with the Council of Bishops and traveling the whole connection to resource Acts of Repentance toward Reconciliation. “He will help us look at the larger picture,” Jerry says.
Just as intentionality must come before the Act of Repentance toward Reconciliation, intentionality will carry into the future. “Don’t tell me. Show me,” is the approach Native Americans have to this process. “So the Act is not the end but a beginning of going forward in practical relational ways to be in ministry together in years to follow,” Jerry notes.
“I hope this Native American Ministries Sunday will be an occasion for us all to stop and wonder, ‘Who is it whom we relate to through our Baptism? Who are the people of the Council of the Three Fires? What are their hopes for ministry today and tomorrow? How can I learn more about them?” Jerry concludes.
We now enter into a year of education and illumination to explore those questions together.
Last Updated on April 8, 2015