"You ain't never gonna get Injunz to go to church!"
Recently, the Brookfield office of Lutheran Indian Ministries got a phone call from someone who had received one of our mailings. It was obvious by the silence on our end that the caller was doing most of the talking. The call ended abruptly with this staggering statement:
You ain't never gonna get Injunz to go to church!
Wow! When I heard this, a full range of emotions ran through me. I was angry. I was hurt. I was offended. In one sentence, this person essentially told us we had no chance to accomplish the mission God has called us to in Native Ministry.
Don’t Indian people need to hear the Gospel? Don’t Native people need a Savior?
Is Christianity the white man’s religion?
God says NO! The Bible says NO! And when you support Lutheran Indian Ministries with your gifts, you say NO!
This is hard work.
It’s not easy to change perceptions.
It’s not easy to look into the angry faces of those who blame Christianity and the church for their problems. It’s especially not easy to look into the eyes of Native brothers and sisters and see the anguish caused by years of physical and sexual abuse or to see the toll that drug and alcohol abuse has taken on far too many Native people.
And it’s not easy to attend the funeral of yet another Indian child who took his own life rather than face another day on this earth.
Our caller was right. In 500 years of evangelism, only 5% of our Native American brothers and sisters proclaim Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior. WE ain’t never gonna get “Injunz” to go to church. But the power of the Holy Spirit can and does!
From the Interior of Alaska to Navajo, New Mexico, you are helping to share the love of Jesus and His message of salvation to our spiritually starved Native brothers and sisters.
"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you." (John 15:16 ESV)
You see, we did not choose to do this ministry. He chose us and appointed us so that we might bear fruit. It’s one of God’s most awesome and amazing commands… to bear fruit. By the power of the Holy Spirit, He plants the seeds and nurtures us so that we grow in the faith. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7) Then He commands us to fulfill the Great Commission and share that faith with others.
Through your prayers and by the power of the Holy Spirit, Native American lives are being changed. Native Americans are coming to know the love and grace that comes from a relationship with their Savior, Jesus Christ.
Indians are going to church!
• They are worshiping in places like Makah Lutheran Church in Neah Bay, Washington, and in Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Navajo, New Mexico.
• They are hearing the Word of God through Bible study on the Olympic Peninsula.
• They are praising God at the LIGHT House campus ministry at Haskell Indian Nations University.
• They are learning God’s Truth and being baptized at Teen Camp in Fairbanks, Alaska.
With your gifts, you are helping to sustain and grow this important outreach to Native people. You are helping make it possible for Native Americans to be in fellowship with one another and with Christ.
We can’t do this alone!
We need the power of the Holy Spirit and we need you.
Won’t you please make a gift today to Lutheran Indian Ministries so this important ministry can continue to fulfill God’s mission and reach even more Indians for Jesus?
This is an important ministry which, despite our caller's protestations and predictions, is building the Kingdom of God here on earth.
Native Americans need Jesus.
Salvation is theirs through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Your gift to Lutheran Indian Ministries allows Indians to know these Biblical truths. Praise God!
**Would you also please pray for our misguided friend who is so blind that he cannot see what God sees and what you see.**