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Embarking on a Journey of Healing - Post #9

5/20/2014

3 Comments

 
Bishop’s Sand Creek Massacre Blog
Entry #9
May 20, 2014
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“On a Mission from God?” – the School of Congregational Development

In the summer of 2013 the School of Congregational Development was held in Denver, Colorado.  Hundreds of United Methodist ministers and lay people came to learn how to start new churches or to strengthen existing churches.  We call them “church developers” or “church planters.”  We think of them as pastors whose faith is so strong, and whose personalities are so generous that the love of God pours through them to touch people in winning, transformative ways.

As the bishop in Denver, I was invited to preach at the opening worship service.  The Rocky Mountain Conference is the product of a church developer.  Within months of the discovery of gold in Denver in 1858 Methodist missionaries were sent to the “gold country” of Colorado.  In 1861 Rev. John Chivington, was send as a “Presiding Elder” to organize churches.  He was sent as a church planter, but as we know he left active ministry for the military.  As a Colonel in the US Cavalry he became a Civil War hero at the battle of Glorietta Pass, and then he led the slaughter of peaceful innocents camped under the supposed protection of the U.S. Government at Sand Creek.  How could a man of God lead a massacre of the innocents?

Picture
    Pastor Charles Brower, Community UMC, Nome, AK          Bishop Elaine Stanovsky, Mountain Sky Area, UMC
My job, as the preacher, was to welcome and encourage a new generation of church planters who came to Denver to be trained.  I couldn’t let them come to Denver without telling the cautionary tale of John Chivington, church-planter-turned-Indian-killer.  Charles Brower, Inupiaq local pastor in Nome, Alaska, shared his own story of abuse in a boarding school.  Follow the link to a video of Charles’ testimony and the sermon.   

http://vimeo.com/yacumc/review/87374478/a4a9c63880    

3 Comments
Marianne Niesen
5/21/2014 05:42:16 am

So how was your 'warning' received. It is indeed a haunting reminder that church planting has often been done in the name of church survival. To the extent that church planting was about 'saving people' it arose from a misguided and narrow notion about who God could love...so, just curious...what was the response to your observation?

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Mary Lee Landerholm
5/21/2014 06:18:17 am

So much to be forgiven for. Our ignorance and arrogance. A place to start.

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Karen Disney
5/28/2014 02:33:19 am

This morning, my heart holds three cultures; Native Americans, African Americans, and my cultural history, English American. I grieve the pain inflicted when we consider our brothers and sisters as others. Today I also grieve the passing of poet Maya Angelou. I share this poem in her honor.
"Good Morning"
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours- your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
Maya Angelou

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