what's
Happening

In 1994, more than 30 First Nations and Métis Christians came together with leaders from World Vision and the EFC in Treaty 1 Territory, West Saint Paul, Manitoba. This diverse circle, representing men and women from many denominational backgrounds, listened intently to Indigenous experiences of life in colonial Canada and in the church. The goal of this gathering was to build relationships among Indigenous Christian leaders and address the lack of understanding of Indigenous realities among non-Indigenous Christian leaders.

The ’94 gathering in Treaty 1 created the space for the EFC to say “yes” when Elijah Harper invited  the EFC to participate in the 1995 Sacred Assembly. The EFC was involved as an organizer and active participant in the event and helped craft the ground-breaking Reconciliation Proclamation (text, video), which articulated a vision of what right relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples looked like.

In 1995, the EFC invited Christian Indigenous leaders to form an EFC Aboriginal Task Force (later named the Aboriginal Ministries Council) that would strengthen relationships among Indigenous leaders and produce educational material for churches. This group, which operated from 1996 to 2012, developed materials related to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, for instance, and led educational sessions at the annual gatherings of EFC affiliate leaders.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which concluded in 2015, issued a number of Calls to Action, some of which were addressed specifically to churches and faith groups. In early 2016, the EFC called together a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders from within the EFC’s affiliates to prepare a response to the TRC’s Calls to Action, particularly Call to Action #48, which calls on faith groups to “formally adopt and comply with the principles, norms and standards of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation.” In the response, the EFC committed to:

A year later, the EFC hosted a gathering of representatives of denominational affiliates at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg. Conversation focused on how we could work together to support Evangelicals in Canada in the reconciliation journey.

Some of the representatives met again at gatherings following the 2018 and 2019 Symposiums held by NAIITS An Indigenous Learning Community. In 2019, the NAIITS organizers invited the group to consider offering a paper at the next Symposium that would address how evangelical churches will work toward right relationship with Indigenous people, both within and outside church communities.

Members of what was later called the EFC Indigenous-Settler Relations Working Group responded to the challenge and presented a paper, Stewarding Sacred Seeds, at the 2020 NAIITS Symposium. In the paper, the Working Group looks back at the history of the EFC’s engagement in reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and seeks to identify barriers to meaningful and sustained evangelical engagement in reconciliation.

The paper recommends a number of actions to be taken by the EFC in pursuit of reconciliation and right relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. The EFC has received these recommendations and has committed, as outlined in the paper, to these seven commitments.

In the spring of 2021, the Seven Commitments Working Group, was established to help guide the implementation of these commitments.