Native American Clergy Plans Program of Hope

Native American ministers who work with tribes throughout the United States and Canada will focus on the problems and needs of their people at the third annual Convocation of Christian Indian Leaders of North America, which begins here Monday.

The week-long convocation, which is expected to attract more than 300 ministers and lay people, will offer workshops on how to reach tribes, how to organize and revive churches and other subjects.

Convocation chairman Rodger Cree, pastor of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Assembly of God Church, said the event will attract ministers from Southern Baptist, Nazarene, Missionary Alliance and independent churches, “with the desire that we pool our resources to offer hope.”

“We will have workshops that deal with the problems that confront the ministers who work with the Indian people--alcohol, drugs, suicides and poverty. And we’re going to be dealing with how we can establish an indigenous church,” said Cree, who comes from a Mohawk tribe near Montreal, Canada.

Fragmented Families

Most of the problems within tribes stem from Native Americans feeling a loss of identity, Cree said. “It’s a fragmented family. I think it goes way back to a time when the government tried to assimilate the Indian family into the mainline.”

Assimilation resulted in Native Americans breaking off into different segments, and that has caused turmoil and confusion, Cree said. “Alcohol is the No. 1 problem, and it is used to escape from the harshness of this setup. They also go to drugs; they get despondent and suicidal. There is a very high rate of suicide (among Native Americans)--the highest in the nation. There is domestic abuse and very serious illness resulting from alcoholism, and loss of income, irregularity on the job.”

Ministers continue to struggle with how to reach those suffering from these problems, he said.

“We are going to approach this problem of the urban Indian, those who live in New York, Chicago, Boston and what have you. Then we have the reservation Indians and among those you’ll have the traditional, the transitional and the contemporary Indians. So you have these different stratas you must reach with the message of the gospel.

Respect for Cultures

The Assembly of God Church believes in total abstinence from alcohol, recreational drugs and tobacco, he added. But unlike the white missionaries who first brought Christianity to Native Americans--telling them to “tear down the totem pole”--ministers today must respect and understand the tribes’ cultures and religious history to be effective, Cree said.

However, there are certain parts of the culture, particularly in regard to religion, that Native Americans will have to give up in order to adhere to the gospel.

“The supernatural part (of their beliefs), because in many cases it delves into the spirit world--the spirit of wolves, the spirit of the coyote,” Cree said. “They believe they can have their spirit come in us, and we can be as cunning as a coyote. The Bible says that God is the spirit.”