Repentance is never a ‘one time’ experience

“An Act of Repentance toward Healing Relationships with Indigenous Peoples” will take place at 7:30 p.m. April 27.

In a press conference before the worship service, The Rev. George E. “Tink” Tinker, said he was honored and has so much respect for The United Methodist Church for taking this step because the process is difficult and complex. “It will be my job to explain in 30 minutes how to make right a little over 500 years of Christian invasion and imperialism.”

Tinker, who is a citizen of the Osage Nation and an indigenous advocate and theologian, will be the worship service’s keynote speaker. Tinker is on the faculty at United Methodist-related Iliff School of Theology in Denver and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “Repentance is never a one-time experience,” he said. “Repenting needs to be a way of life."


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Mission and Ministry
The Rev. Laurie Bayen (left) reads the Sermon on the Mount from an Indigenous version of the New Testament while standing alongside the Laguna de Santa Rosa, a 22-mile-long wetland in Sebastopol, Calif., that was once inhabited by the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok people, during a field trip for the Sacred Ground program. Sacred Ground is a mobile outdoor walking/spirituality app developed by Bayen, a United Methodist pastor. It combines creation care and Indigenous history with calls to action. Pictured with Bayen, from left, are Cheryl LaSalle, Charlotte Fisher, Carol Wegner and Pat Schoch.

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