wfn.org | UGC - Native American Sees Link With Christianity

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

> Uniting General Council 2010

> News Release

> 21 June 2010

> Native American Sees Link With Christianity

> By Jackie Macadam, UGC correspondent

Mike Peters, pastor of 4 Fires Ministry in Grand Rapids, Michigan and a member 
of the Odawa tribe, says the Bible is his plumb line.

When I consider the sacred ways of the Native American peoples, I can find many 
of them within its pages, he says.

Peters, who helped organize todayâ??s Pow Wow in the park, sees parallels in his 
peopleâ??s spiritual traditions and Christianity.

â??For instance, Native Americans â??smokeâ?? prayers in a sacred ceremony,â?? he says. 
â??They use special blends of natural plant materials, which give off a beautiful perfume when burned, and the 
perfume takes the prayers to God.â?? He finds that an â??incredibly similar imageâ?? to the reference in 
Revelation to an angel sending sweet-smelling incense and prayers to God.

Few Native Americans in the United States are Christian, he says, largely because missionaries 
refused to take native beliefs seriously.  â??If you werenâ??t prepared to accept 
the full European picture, the clothes, the hair ? then you were not even considered 
human.â??

Peters has nonetheless became a Christian and works with Native American youth 
through his church.

â??I was an urban Indian, like 72 percent of Native Americans. When I was a kid I 
used to run to school. Not because I wanted to get there quickly, but because if I was 
caught by the other kids, I would be beaten, my clothes torn ?â??

By the time he was 19, he says, he was an alcoholic and trying drugs. One 
night, he was about to smoke marijuana when he thought of his father, who was 
an  alcoholic.

â??I just realized I didnâ??t want a future like that? I just knew I had to begin praying 
for help? That at very night I flushed my drugs and the desire to drink alcohol was taken away. I 
havenâ??t drunk since.  God set me free that night.â??

Soon after, he began studying Native American culture, fascinated by its 
spirituality, seeing many aspects in common with Christianity.

The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States (June 18-28) 
marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed 
Ecumenical Council to form the World Communion of Reformed  Churches.

Contact: Kristine Greenaway

UGC News Room ? Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204

Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636: News Room: 1-616-526-7885

UGC News Room ? Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204

> Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636
> email: kgr@warc.ch

> web: www.reformedchurches.org