Ministry within a Cultural Context

The White Earth Reservation Congregations

by the Rev. Lisa White Smith

The White Earth Reservation spans 1,300 square miles of prairie, woods, and lakes in northwestern Minnesota. It is the home of the White Earth Ojibwa Nation, consisting of three counties, which are among the economically poorest in the state; its schools are among the highest poverty rate as well. The poverty rates have fluctuated between 24-12% over the past few years.

White there is a Casino on the Reservation, there is no payment made to tribal members. The proceeds go to help support various tribal programs, which is still not enough to meet the needs on the Reservation.

There are four Episcopal congregations which have served the needs of the Ojibwa communities for over 100 years: St. Columba, Breck Memorial, Samuel Memorial, and St. Philip's.

The White Earth Reservation was evangelized by the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches. In the 1800's, when the Episcopal Church came to evangelize the Ojibwa people on the Reservations in the northland, they came with the Good News of Jesus, but they also came and told the people that all of the spiritual and cultural practices were to be renounced. There are stories still told today of clergy who took knives and cut into the people's sacred drum, telling them the drum was pagan. The heartbeat of the people was stripped away.

The churches were formed and were truly Anglican. For some time the liturgy was done in the Ojibwa language and hymns were sung in the people's language. As time, culture, and clergy changed, the churches began to worship in traditional English (Rite 1) and the Ojibwa language was not the norm for worship. However, Ojibwa hymns were still sung.

Another reality for the Reservation churches over the last 50 years is the short lived turn-over rate of clergy serving the churches (whether white or native clergy). Ministry on the Reservation has always been and is still very isolating and difficult. The burn-out rate is extremely high, and the result of that for the congregations has been costly.

Today, many of our young people are trying to recapture their culture, traditions, and language. At White Earth, we have been making a concerted effort to incorporate more Native culture, music and spiritual practice into our liturgies.

The congregations have adopted a Team Ministry (Total Ministry) approach, consisting of the vicar, three locally trained priests, catechists, lay readers, administrators, church wardens, and other lay leaders.

The average Sunday attendance among the four congregations is around 80. However, the Easter attendance is well over 400 with more than 30 baptisms! We also conduct an unusually high number of traditional wakes (1-3 nights) and funerals (30 deaths along this past year). We suffer from high rates of infant mortality, youth and young adult deaths, suicide, and other poverty-related social problems. The ties to the Episcopal Church, especially in times of crisis, continue to be present over time.

Members of our congregations are leaders within our communities as well as serve on a variety of diocesan and national committees and positions. The congregations have participated in MDG projects, raising funds to purchase chickens and water wells for Indigenous people in South America.

The Ministry Team approach has enabled more effective pastoral care, given the great need and difficult geography within our mission field.

The important questions to reflect upon as a diocese are:

As a church we came in and took away Native culture and religion; is it right or just to walk away from what we began?

Do we not have a responsibility to continue to evangelize in a way that is respectful of the needs to preserve culture, tradition, and language?

Native people continue to be a significant group of our poorest people within the diocese. Do we continue to see this mission field as our priority?

Ministry with Native Americans has been historically about "who we are" as a diocese, yet in many ways the ministry has been and continues to be invisible to much of the diocese. Are we prepared to change this?

The needs are great, as is the Christian faith of the White Earth Anishinaabe people.

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