Center for Indigenous Ministries—DOC

02/24/2026

If you missed our 2026 Winter Talk, you can now listen to the talks and panels on YouTube! You are invited into the conversation.

Winter Talk honors the season of winter. The harvest is long past and spring soon to come. Winter is our time to think, tell stories, and eat. At Winter Talk...

02/15/2026

Center for Inidgenous Ministries Newsletter
https://mailchi.mp/e961ff03ff24/vn2czaa7l3-17995600?e=[UNIQID]

02/05/2026

We listened to many great perspectives on Two-Eyed Seeing at Winter Talk 2026!

02/02/2026

Great start to Winter Talk 2026 with a gathering at the Parish Church of St. Jerome!

01/25/2026

Center for Indigenous Ministries Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/d8ea6ec8493e/vn2czaa7l3-17995100

01/23/2026

Winter Talk is just over a week away! The ingathering on Sunday evening features many special guests (see below). To attend all of winter talk (in-person or virtually), check out https://centerforindigenousministries.org/winter-talk-2020/ for more information, or join just the ingathering through the livestream on The Parish Church of St. Jerome's Facebook or YouTube (Tulsa, OK).

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Ingathering – Center for Indigenous Ministries Winter Talk Feb. 1, 6pm – The Parish Church of St. Jerome

I. Welcome – Dr. Lisa Barnett
II. Opening Song & Prayer – Rev. Judy Deere
III. Reading from the Sacred Story (Rev. Joshua Shawnee in Shawnee and Brian Jennings (All Nations Two Spirit Society) in English) IV. An Offering of Music (Native Flute) – Levison Chaffatubbee (Two Spirit Artist and Activist – Oklahoma City)
V. Blanket Ceremony – Rev. David Bell
VI. Introduction of Performer – Rev. Laurie Pound-Feille
VII. Special Performance by Angelica Lindsey* with Oklahoma Woman (string) Quartet
VIII. Special Thanks – Rev. Joshua Shawnee
IX. Blessing with Sacred Elements (Sage, Sweetgrass, Cedar) with Music (Levison, Native Flute)
X. Final Song – Premier of The Clearing (Lindsay & Oklahoma Woman Quartet).

Reception with iconographer Allen Cutler to follow.

*ANJELICA LINDSEY is a neo-classical composer, violinist, and recording artist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her work is concerned with language revitalization, cultural reclamation, and the sonic expression of identity through immersive and emotionally resonant composition.
In 2025, she became the first Cherokee woman to premiere a string quartet and was named a Public Fellow of the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities. Her compositions explore themes of romantic minimalism, cultural memory, and Native storytelling, blending contemporary classical music with voice, electronics, and lived experience.

Her childhood studies with renowned Cherokee artist Shan Goshorn shaped her artistic voice. She is the 2024 recipient of the Artists Creative Fund grant and continues to develop new works for full orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice, and film, including REQUIEM, the first ever composed in the Cherokee language.

What is Winter Talk? Winter Talk honors the season of winter.  The harvest is long past and spring soon to come. Winter is our time to think, tell stories, and eat.  At Winter Talk we com…

11/19/2025

November Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/9e5cbf9694bf/vn2czaa7l3-17993645?e=033d08fd04

11/12/2025

You might be a great fit for supporting the annual Community Coastal Experience (CCE) as a Co-lead or Coordinator. A traveling month-long internship focusing on coastal sciences, Alaska Native culture, history & arts, and archaeology. It is important for these roles to be filled by passionate people- especially Disciple folk with a passion for Indigenous justice!
To learn more about each of these job openings and apply, please visit

Careers Our team of administrators, environmental educators, naturalists, and interns are united by a passion for promoting environmental education and stewardship. Please check our Internships page for additional upcoming opportunities. Thank you for your interest in a career with the Center for Al...

10/12/2025

The landscape calls us into the household of Creaton.

10/11/2025

Cancelled:Unfortunately travel changes means neither Dave or Lisa will be in Albuquerque at this time to visit.

October 19: If you live or are visiting Albuquerque Lisa Barnett (Co-moderation for the Center AND author of Pe**te Politics) and David Bell (Minister for Indigenous Justice) invite you to join them at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center restaurant at 1pm. This is a time to eat and drink, ask questions about the Center, AND have a conversation on how US and Canadian colonial history continues to impact religious institutions and today's indigeneity.

10/10/2025

Join us and your community tomorrow for
National Coming Out Day—
a day to celebrate our indigeneity and authenticity. Let us recognize the courage of Two-Spirit, le***an, gay, bisexual, transgender, q***r, intersex, and other sexual- and gender-diverse (2SLGBTQI+) people, and reaffirm our shared responsibility to create safer spaces for everyone.

(Canada Post 2025 Places of Pride Stamp)

10/10/2025

When I hear words like “Columbus, the original American hero,” I feel a heaviness in my chest — not because I am angry, but because I know how stories can wound when they are told without truth. Our people have lived on this land since long before that man ever dreamed of crossing the ocean. The rivers already had names. The stars already had songs. The people already knew the Creator. To call him a hero, and to erase the names of the ones who were here, is to speak only half a story — and half-stories have always been dangerous things.

When the leaders of a nation use their power to lift up conquest and silence the survivors, it tells me they have not yet learned the meaning of kinship. A true leader does not fear truth. A true leader does not need to erase others to stand tall. Our ancestors taught that greatness is not measured by how far you travel or how many lands you claim, but by how well you remember your relatives — all your relatives — the four-legged, the winged, the swimmers, the crawlers, and the human beings.

When I was young, the old ones told us that stories are medicine, but they can also be poison if told without humility. This proclamation feels like that — words dressed in honor but carrying harm. It forgets the women and children who suffered, the languages silenced, the songs that were not allowed to be sung. It forgets that this so-called discovery began a long night for our peoples, one we are still waking from.

I do not speak these things to divide us. I speak them because truth must be spoken if there is ever to be peace. We do not need to hate Columbus to honor our own story. But we must not let his name stand above the countless ancestors who greeted him with open hands and were repaid with chains.

Today, when the government once again chooses to remember the colonizer and forget the Indigenous, it is not surprising — it is just a reminder that our work is not done. We must keep teaching the children who they are. We must keep speaking our languages, planting our medicines, walking softly on the land that still remembers us.

So I say this: we will not disappear because a proclamation forgets us. We were here before Columbus, and we will be here long after the politicians are gone. The land remembers. The water remembers. The wind carries our names. And as long as we breathe, we will keep telling the whole story — the one that begins not with discovery, but with belonging.

—Kanipawit Maskwa
ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ