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Tilte: Contributions of Native American Presbyterians 
Date: 13-Jun-96 
 
96238     Contributions of Native American Presbyterians 
             to Be Highlighted at General Assembly   
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Elder Ireene Laurence says keeping Native American 
congregations going on Navaho reservations in the southwest hasn't been 
easy. 
 
     Younger people are attracted to more charismatic churches or 
traditional religions, she says, and family loyalty often dictates that 
other members follow. 
 
     Few ministers have trained elders to govern a church or to relate to 
other governing bodies so congregations often flounder when their pastors 
leave, Laurence says many Native American Presbyterians believe, pointing 
out that seven Navaho pulpits are sitting empty right now. 
 
     But 110 Native American Presbyterian congregations have endured, she 
says.  And Laurence is looking forward to celebrating that at the 206th 
General Assembly in Albuquerque, where: 
 
          18 Native American church leaders will be honored 
          the newly formed Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) American Indian 
Youth Council will 
          be introduced 
          an overview of Native American ministries from Point Barrow, 
Ala., to the east coast 
          will be presented and 
          a rededication and recommitment service will call native 
Presbyterians and the wider 
          church into new partnerships. 
 
     Laurence is an elder in Trinity Presbyterian Church in Chinle, Ariz., 
one of two Native American churches in Grand Canyon Presbytery that drafted 
an overture which resulted in last year's General Assembly scheduling the 
Native American celebration this year. 
 
     "We're honoring 18 reprsentatives of  Native American ministries as a 
way of saying thank you to some for long years of service," says the Rev. 
Harrell Davis, associate for Native American congregational enhancement. 
"But we're also lifting up others by presenting a new generation, the 
coming generation ... 
 
     "A new group of leaders is developing." 
 
     That is something to celebrate, says Laurence, who sees native 
communities struggling now to become more self-supporting, both financially 
and in their leadership.  And that means shedding some dependency on 
outside resources and nurturing skills within native communities 
themselves. 
 
     "We're running out of time to adjust to being self-sufficient," 
Laurence says, noting that her own presbytery, Grand Canyon, is expecting 
20 percent cuts in mission dollars over the next four years as the overall 
mission budget declines.  A native committee there is already strategizing 
how to prepare for those cuts. 
 
     "If we don't do it," she says, "who will?" 
 
     Elder Elona Street-Stewart of St. Paul, Minn., and staff to indigenous 
Dakota Presbytery, says the wider church can be part of that transition by 
offering technical support to Native churches. That does not mean sending 
money, but getting involved -- coming to native communities and providing 
teacher training or management seminars so existing skills may be applied 
to congregational life. 
 
     "The denomination hasn't been out there engaged in that ministry.  So 
it doesn't know who the people are," Street-Stewart says, insisting there 
is still a lack of information about reservation life and about the large 
numbers of Native Americans who live in U.S. cities. 
 
     "We're an invisible community," she says, " ... and [others] have held 
onto a sterotype that is several decades old." 
 
      Partnership is two ways, says Davis, who says Native Americans have 
gifts to bring into conversation in the wider church -- a church that can 
often be less expressive in worship. 
 
     "When we provide these kinds of experiences," Davis said of native 
music and dance that will be part of the Assembly celebration, "its more 
than entertainment value ... Undergirding all those dances, songs and 
costumes is a living encounter with God going on with these people." 
 
     Laurence agrees. 
 
      A third-generation Presbyterian, Laurence says people have powerful 
stories to tell about the choice families made to be Christian in the first 
place.  "The way they tell stories, how they try to reach our Native 
Americans ... its compelling to listen to them," she said. It is one of the 
reasons she's pushing for passage of Assembly overtures that grant lay 
pastors more authority to keep churches going. 
 
      "I'm a third-generation Presbyterian ... I want to go to Albuquerque. 
I want to be with other Presbyterians.  I've never really gone out of my 
way to go celebrate with people other than my own group," said Laurence, 
who will be singing with the Navaho choir. 
 
     "Its a big step forward for me." 
 
     Street-Stewart says the celebration is a reminder, too, that Native 
American Presbyterians have much to add to the ecclesiastical and cultural 
heritage of the past century -- to tell "the rest of the story."  That 
story, Street-Stewart would say, is ongoing.  Because at the Assembly's 
end, Native American Presbyterians are "not going away," she says. 
 
     "They're just going back home ... where they'll be making a 
contribution to the local area and to the life of the denomination." 

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