Ministry in Context: Reaching out to the Navajo

By Tasha Books

In the distance, I see a snow-speckled mesa, a flat-topped mountain. I wonder what Lynn and Elinor Nicholson, the first missionaries to the Navajo, must have thought when they arrived here in 1947 dreaming of a hospital and a school, but having only tent-homes in the middle of a high desert wasteland. My friend turns our car at the Blanco Trading Post and that’s how we know that we’re now on the 300-plus acres that make up the Brethren in Christ Navajo Mission in northwestern New Mexico. As we make our way into the heart of the Mission, I find myself encouraged by the fact that many of Lynn and Elinor’s dreams have been realized.

Recognizing context
“I don’t use the word ‘missionary’,” says Duane Bristow, superintendent of the Mission today. When people try to designate them as such, he and wife Diane reply, “We’re just here.” The couple originally came to the Mission for a three-month stay; and now, eight years later, they say they have no intention of leaving: “This is home for us. Every day is just so different, and so varied, I just can’t imagine being anywhere else,” Diane shares.

The Bristows minister with Ralph and Bonnie Yoder of the Nappanee (Ind.) BIC congregation. “Our vision is to bring people in, to build relationships, and to live a lifestyle that would make people want what we have,” Duane explains. “You don’t have ministry until you have a relationship.”

The Bristows take us on a driving tour of the Mission, startling jackrabbits into action. We visit the chapel school building, community center, laundry facilities, public showers, houses, car service center, and horse corral—all now standing on the Mission grounds. There are plans for a 40-room lodge and campground with RV hookups—a place for retreats and ministry training.

The Navajo Nation, an expansive reservation, stretches across more than 27,000 square miles of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and is home to just under 300,000 Navajo. The Mission itself lies on a “checkerboard,” or mixture, of Navajo, state, and privately-owned land in Bloomfield, N.M.

We pass a cemetery of snow-covered mounds and notice one gravestone with five names on it. Duane tells us that all five members of one family were killed by a drunk driver and buried together. He remarks that this is not uncommon.

In 1997, the Mission launched the Overcomers program to address the epidemic of alcoholism that ravages many of the Navajo people. When participants, who are mostly men, come into the program, Duane says that “they don’t know who they are.” With two three-month sessions a year, the program focuses on “teaching them who they are and who God created them to be.” Today, 70 percent of the men who come through the program stay sober.

Understanding context
Lost identity seems a common challenge for Navajo, who continue to struggle with the effects of their people’s history of stolen land and culture. To compensate, they’ve adopted aspects of many different cultures, making it hard to describe the “average” Navajo.

“I’ve heard it said that the Navajo way is to borrow anything from any other culture that looks like they can use it,’” muses Ben Stoner, former superintendent and teacher at the Mission. Hispanic and Anglo influences, religious conversions, and the ongoing, constant influx of people moving on and off the reservation all contribute to a great diversity among the Diné—Navajo for “The People.”

Although most Navajo on the reservation no longer live in hogans (round, one-room mud brick houses), many there are still without running water and electricity. Yet they are watching CSI on generator-run TVs. “They don’t have any sense of who they are,” Duane observes. “The [native people] seek harmony within their lives . . . but they’ve got this emptiness, this hole—and I don’t think they know how to fill it,” adds Diane. “We know they need that relationship with Jesus.”

Fifty years ago, Duane explains, missionaries had a different approach to reaching Navajo. The missionaries “took the Navajo’s drums, their feathers, their beautiful regalia, even their language away from them” because it was thought that this had to be done in order for the Diné to become Christians. But like the early Gentile conversions in Acts 15, he suggests, this kind of cultural conversion did not lead to heart changes, as evidenced by the fact that only about five percent of the Navajo chose to believe in Jesus. “We’ve tried church, but we just don’t fit in,” a Navajo woman once told Diane.

Today, the Mission is moving toward “contextual ministry” or “using ministry within the context of the culture.” By making conscious choices about how to talk about and perform the ministry of the Mission—such as by calling God “The Creator;” referring to church services as “gatherings;” and using a donation blanket instead of an offering plate—Duane and Diane are able to help translate the Christian faith into one that resonates with native culture. The main challenge, say the Bristows, is overcoming the thought pattern that makes the false claim that “you can’t be Indian and be a Christian.”

At First Nations church on the Mission, a huge drum is encircled by chairs of congregants, worshipping in their native music and language. On the average Sunday, forty people gather together. “The Gospel doesn’t threaten your culture,” Duane says. “It may threaten your lifestyle, but it doesn’t threaten your culture.” He cites Paul’s declaration in 1 Corinthians 9:22: “‘I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.’” He sits with the drummers, stick in hand, a turquoise rock necklace on his chest.

Living in context
Jumping into the heart of Navajo culture are Ben and Eunice Stoner, who used to work on the Mission, but who have transitioned into serving as church planters to the Diné. Recently joined by Brian and Rochelle Myers, the Stoners came to the Navajo Nation nearly forty years ago for voluntary service and have been in New Mexico ever since, rearing three children, learning the Navajo language, and even living for three years in a one-room house with no running water. “We’ll never be Navajo, but we’ll never be the white people we used to be,” Ben laughs. “[My vision] is that people will use their context to worship God.”

In 2003, the Stoners began Freedom of Nations, a church plant initiative now comprised of about 30 people meeting in seven different homes. “Most Navajo don’t feel good about who they are,” Ben relates. “In comparison to the white person, they don’t feel like they’re doing well. We’ve really been focused on reaching new people and starting home churches with people that had no connection to the established Church.”

Understanding that context is key. “The whole thing of evangelism is foreign to Navajo culture. They don’t try to win anybody to their religion,” says Ben. “They don’t have a sin concept.” The home church gatherings begin with a chronological Bible study called “Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ.” This fits with the culture, the Stoners explain, because native stories and ceremonies are also chronological. “Nine out of 10 people that we’ve taken through the study have become believers,” he reports.

“Some of our [Navajo friends] who are Christians say that the Navajo religion is just incomplete; it doesn’t have Jesus,” Eunice says. “We’re wanting to really facilitate a church-planting movement to get people focused on reaching their own people, because we can’t begin to reach everybody,” Ben shares. But, he adds with context in mind, “For them to be evangelistic, it’s got to be a Holy Spirit thing.”  

A bigger context 
In many ways, the Stoners’ work is one of reconciliation, healing, and building trust. “I don’t know very many Navajo who are financially poor, but I don’t know very many Navajo that aren’t emotionally poor,” Ben relates.

Living down the reputation of church being primarily a source of aid, the Stoners are careful in how Freedom of Nations relates to the greater Church. “We must realize that [white men] were the conquering people, and they still see us that way,” Ben says, “By building relationships, we can start to change that perception.”

Still, Navajo identity is “with the land,” and when it comes to core BIC values, we’re standing on some common ground. “Traditionally, the Navajos were not a warring people; they were a nomadic farm people, and they became herders when they got animals,” Ben says, pointing to the kinship. Also, the Navajo are very community- and family-oriented: “Everybody within the clan is supposed to help everybody else in the clan,” he says.

Despite changes in personnel and ministry styles, Duane affirms that “the BIC have a really good reputation out here.” But when it comes to contextual ministry, it’s important that we “continue to be learners,” Eunice reminds.

After just 24 hours at the Mission, we drive out the recently graveled dirt road to the highway back to Albuquerque. I’m told the Navajo learn by observation. For me, this weekend was an education.

For more information on the Navajo BIC Mission, www.navajobic.org
For more information on the Navajo Nation, www.navajo.org