What better time to reflect than on Thanksgiving God’s remarkable faithfulness. It is a reminder to all of us of how the Lord has been there for us from the beginning of Calvary Chapel in 1961. For those of us who were there in the very beginning, and there are only a few of us left, we need to share with the following generations of what GOD has done.

I wonder if the generations that have followed us realize what a rich heritage they have. Psalm 145:4 says, “One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.”

Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa began with a couple of mere 20-year-olds joining hands with about 10 seniors in a little trailer court recreation room on Newport Blvd. in Costa Mesa, CA. Little did we know that God had an amazing plan. We soon grew out of that small place and rented the Girls Club building in Costa Mesa. We thought “this is getting serious” as people wanted to donate money to pay the rent and buy hymnals. It was necessary that we incorporate as a non-profit organization…but it came to our attention that we didn’t have a name. Lois Nelson, the wife of the then leader Floyd Nelson, called my husband Hal and asked, “What would you think if we named our little church Calvary Chapel?” Hal immediately thought, “This sounds like a great name since we were a small group of about 25 and could never think of ourselves as being anything more.” So, Calvary Chapel it became!

As we invited family and friends to join us, we grew and had to find another place to meet. A gentleman in the group heard that a little church on Church Street in Costa Mesa was for sale… for over $24,000. That was an impossibility; we could barely pay our rent and small expenses. By this time, though, we did have a small savings account. The board was presented with the idea that with a $10,000 down payment we could purchase the little church. Miraculously, an elderly woman in our congregation said she would make up the difference between our savings and the necessary down payment. Within a few months, we were sitting in our own little church that seated a whopping 100 people; we filled barely half of it, but we were up and running with a Sunday school room, nursery and pastor’s office. But we needed a pastor for this little congregation.

The services were led with the help of professors from Southern Bible College and others for several years. Another miracle was about to take place when Pastor Chuck Smith agreed to speak on a Sunday morning. We then asked him to speak again; we loved the teaching we heard. We brazenly asked if he would consider being our pastor. It took a lot of nerve because we couldn’t begin to pay him as much as he was then receiving. Yet, we witnessed another miracle when Chuck said he was feeling led to come back to the area. The board then asked the congregation to vote, and they unanimously voted Chuck Smith to be our pastor.

Once again, through an act of God, our congregation grew until we outgrew our precious little chapel. Toward the end of 1965, a few hippie types attended our services, and another miracle was about to happen. They accepted Jesus into their lives and left their drugs and old lifestyle behind them and began telling others about Jesus. They came by the hundreds and then by the thousands…

This posed a difficulty. We had to sell the little chapel and rent a larger church, yet the miracles kept happening. Pastor Chuck made a low-ball offer on a school in Santa Ana; surprisingly, it was the only offer. The old school had to be torn down, and our new church on Sunflower and Greenville was built….and that was even too small. Cars filled the parking lot and parked up and down the streets. Costa Mesa police officers offered their off-duty time to help with the hundreds who came early to get in line, in order to find a place to sit or stand when Pastor Chuck began teaching. I saw a picture of Chuck with a pensive look on his face observing the congregation of people, young and old, crammed into the church, maybe what he was sensing and asking himself is, “What just happened?” He was simply teaching God’s Word, and we were all absorbing it like sponges.

Miracles were still on the horizon. We erected a huge circus type tent on the 20 acres that God miraculously made available to us, to accommodate the thousands of young and old alike. In retrospect, it was a roller coaster ride we could not have imagined, and it got the attention of the media. Out of those early years, young men rose up to pastor Calvary Chapels, and to this day, there are Calvary Chapels around the world.

Just as the church was built on the Apostles and the Prophets with the cornerstone Christ Jesus Himself (Ephesians 2:22,21), we at Calvary Chapel modeled that same foundation by the simple teaching of God’s Word. We have inherited a great legacy. From my memories of those early years, how can I not be so thankful this Thanksgiving? And how can I not share it with those generations that are following behind, with the encouragement that God is still doing the miraculous? We shouldn’t expect anything less. To God be the glory; great things He has done this Thanksgiving and beyond.

^{Originally published in 2020}

I imagine the disciples could sense something was different that evening. They had shared countless meals together, and often those meals would be the stage in which their rabbi performed. They had seen Him eat with elite dignitaries and social pariahs. They had heard Him forgive the sins of tax collectors and seen Him turn jars of water into wine at a wedding feast. They had witnessed Him turn a small boy’s offering into enough food to feed a hillside of thousands. That evening, when they celebrated the Passover together, it likely seemed different and particularly void of miracles and grandiose teachings. That evening, He told the disciples that one of them who had loyally followed Him for years, and had heard His teachings with his own ears, would betray Him. The tension in the room had to have been amplified by the growing hostility that they experienced from the religious elite, who were tired of hearing about this itinerant rabbi some were whispering might actually be the Messiah, the Son of Man.

In the midst of all this, Jesus reached for bread, unleavened bread that had no yeast because the Israelites’ escape from slavery left no time for bread to rise. Again, this evening, the bread would represent escape and redemption. Jesus held the bread and gave thanks, and then broke the bread so that all could share in it. He told those young men, who were wondering what life-changing message their teacher would share with them, that the bread was His body broken for them. After their meal was finished, He took the cup full of wine, and gave thanks for it. He shared it with His friends, after He told them that this cup was a sign of the new promise He was making with humanity. It was His blood, shed for them. A broken body and shed blood.

An inexplicable feeling of grief likely filled the room as those men, who had left their nets to follow this man, were wondering what would happen next. However, Jesus had left them a wonderful gift that they likely had no appreciation for until the events of the next three days were over.

He had taught them a way to give thanks and to remember.

Over the course of the 2000 years since that fateful evening, Christ’s followers have hotly debated what this meal was really all about. Some have wondered if His real flesh and blood is present in the elements of what we might call the Lord’s Supper. In the ritual of the modern Evangelical Church, we often find a simple loaf of bread and grape juice used for the elements. Despite the disagreements that stem from as far back as the early church fathers, what Christians seem to agree on is that the purpose of the meal can be found on the pages of Scripture itself. We are to give thanks and to remember.

Catholics, and many mainline Protestants, still refer to the meal by its ancient name, the Eucharist. It is a shame that many evangelicals refuse to use the word now, likely due to feelings of ritual that surround it, because the word is an appropriate label. The Greek word eucharisteo literally means to “give thanks.” It is the word used by Matthew and Mark to describe what Jesus did both in the Passover celebration and on the hillside where He multiplied those fish and loaves. It is the word Paul would use all those times he would tell a faithful church that he gave thanks to God for them, and the testimony he had heard about them. It is this word that serves as our reminder that before Christ gave the bread and wine to His disciples, He first gave His Father the small gift of His appreciation for the provision of bread and wine. It is the best translation of our English phrase “thank you.”

We too, when we take the bread in our hands, are to first simply give thanks to God both for the bread and for what it represents. Christ tells us that we are to remember Him when we eat. That includes remembering the events that followed this meal, i.e., the suffering He experienced at the hands of Roman guards, at the feeling of stark loneliness on the cross, at the death of the Son of Man, and at the victorious resurrection that gave us life. Yet we also forget to remember other things. There is the sermon He gave on the mountainside when He told His followers to love their enemies, the moment when He first forgave the sins of the paralyzed man before making him walk again, and the tears He shed with those who were grieving over the death of His friend Lazarus. We are to remember these things too and to give thanks for them.

To “give” thanks is an expectation we likely forget we have for others.

We expect a small wave from the driver of the car we allow to cut in front of us. Some of us struggle to find the right words to express gratitude when we are opening Christmas gifts in front of loved ones. That is because, ultimately, we are simply bad at saying, “thank you.” It is no wonder then that what humanity values so much, yet struggles to perform, would be something God desires to see us exercise and grow in. The habit of gratitude is one that escapes even the most “mature” Christians, yet I challenge you to think of someone who constantly practices it, who is not also the most encouraging Christian you know.

A change of mind is necessary to see this change in a believer’s life. We must realize that there is a reason the Biblical authors so often phrased this charge as to “give” thanks, and not simply to “say” thanks. Our gratitude is itself a gift regardless of how much it pales in comparison to the gift that provoked it. In the case of the parent on Christmas who has given their child something they desperately hoped to receive, that child’s “thank you” is the only thing the child could possibly give back to their parent. We are in the same position with God as He bestows eternal riches and gifts beyond our wildest imaginations. The life of obedience for the Christ follower begins with a simple “thank you” in response to the work of the cross and resurrection.

This habit of gratitude leads us to remembering as well. As we face the temptation to shipwreck our faith at every turn, we can remember that on the night in which He was betrayed, Christ took bread and broke it to symbolize His body that would be broken.

In light of this, it is easier for us to abstain from a trivial and temporary temptation that has consequences far surpassing the fleeting pleasure it might give us. Entering an American holiday season, which forces our consumerist muscles to get stronger every year, the cup which Christ gave thanks for, before explaining that His blood would give us all we could ever need, allows us the liberty to remember that we, in fact, do not need all we are told we do. God does not leave us with vague esoteric teachings that we must memorize by rote, but instead gives us bread and wine. As we look upon these all-too-common objects, He asks that we remember Him and all He has done for us.

The Church is to be a called-out-group that is defined by being eucharistic.

That is to say, we are to be both grateful and generous. Paul’s charges to the church at Corinth in his first letter implied that one of the catalysts of their many problems was a sinful view of the Eucharistic meal. It is around the table, remembering Christ, that the Church becomes one body and the Corinthians had horribly missed that. It is not foolish to say that we too have missed the mark on being known as a group defined by the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. How much more flavorful the earth would be if we, the salt, turned our minds more often to that night 2000 years ago? How much more light would our city on a hill give if wanderers were met more often with the ever-present glow of the upper room instead of the wild flashes of our modern strategy and salesmanship? How much easier would it be to persuade the world that our physical bodies were designed and sanctified by God if we regularly bowed our heads and pointed them to how Christ used His?

We can remedy this by first making more time to pause and remember, and to give thanks. Pastors can lead their congregations to the table more frequently and cease allowing the meal to be an addition to a service or a transition between a sermon and an invitation. Parents can bring their children to experience the life-giving story of the time when the disciples thought all might be lost, but Christ knew better, and so He gave them reminders to hold in their hands. Bread and juice can be in the cabinet, waiting to be brought out for a weekly remembrance.

If we desire our generosity to be cheerful and not obligatory, understanding the practice of the Eucharist, of giving thanks, is a fantastic place to start. If we want the center of our daily lives to be the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection, then choosing to live a life of gratitude and memory is the only place to start. So, take the bread and cup in your hands, say, “thank you,” and then pause to remember.

When my wife and I set off to serve at Calvary Chapel Nice back in May 1997, we carried most of what we owned in a few overstuffed suitcases halfway across the world. Those were the glory days of lenient baggage allowances and quick access to departure gates. In one of our suitcases, too heavy to lug up a staircase by myself, was a book I still keep and flip through from time to time—The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. Its premise, Did God have a plan for America?, is still of great interest, but what feeds my soul over the years is the historical accounts of hope, suffering and the first Thanksgiving.

In their account of the first Thanksgiving, Marshall and Manuel wrote that the Pilgrims wanted to celebrate all God had done for them and invite their native hosts to a feast in honor of the Great Provider. “Massasoit¹ was invited and unexpectedly arrived a day early—with ninety…counting their numbers, the Pilgrim’s had to pray hard from giving in to despair.”²

We can only imagine the anxiousness they felt as this army of unexpected guests entered their settlement. Hospitality is a blessed exercise of grace because as we plan to reach out, we may find ourselves completely overwhelmed by the need (John 6:5). But that’s when the Lord provides beyond what we think we need in those special moments of our faith being tested. God used the Natives to feed their English hosts. “Massasoit had commanded the braves to hunt for the occasion. They arrived with no less than five dressed deer and more than a dozen fat wild turkeys!” Experiencing this kind of miraculous provision changes a soul. It brings us to prayer and deep thankfulness as it did for the New England Colony.

“Surely one moment stood out in the Pilgrim’s memory—William Brewster’s prayer as they began the festival. They had so much for which to thank God: for providing all their needs, even when their faith had not been up to believing that He would do so; for the lives of the departed and for taking them home to be with Him.”³

The first year was a calamitous one. Many dear friends perished before they arrived in the New World. The year that followed produced more hardships than anticipated, dwindling the number of survivors every month. If they were to welcome even five more guests than planned to their Thanksgiving feast, it would have been a step of faith. Yet God gave them the grace to rejoice and experience His love in a new way.

I remember our first Thanksgiving in a foreign land, our generous hosts in Nice and the overwhelming gratefulness for all the Lord had brought us through. It was an evening that overcame the feeling of uncertainty we carried in facing a new year. Yet in our lives, we’ve seen time and time again how faithful the Lord is. It reminds me of another story just one year later as the new colony in Plymouth survived another year in the New World and called for a second feast of Thanksgiving. This time, they began a little differently, a solemn moment of remembrance as set before each one was “an empty plate in front of each person were five kernels of corn.”⁴ Remembering the penury they endured and the divine deliverance they experienced led them into a more profound celebration.

It’s technically not necessary to experience hardship to be thankful.

God tells us to give thanks (Psalm 50:14; Ephesians 5:20), and we know that He through His Spirit gives us what we need to obey (Philippians 2:13). Still, some people seem to be naturally inclined to thankfulness and yet others, swimming in blessing, only see the negative. How does this work? This is a question of the heart. One can experience the goodness of God, know He will provide based on all they have experienced and read, but still, through sin or doubt, give in to a grumbling spirit. This happened to the children of Israel in the desert (Numbers 17:6-14) and is part of the temptations that are common to all (1 Corinthians 10:13).

We would hope the Pilgrims would have kept the unity of the Spirit and continued in thankfulness as God increased their provision. Oddly enough, by November of their second year in Plymouth, a controversy had so divided the unity that had once given birth to our Thanksgiving Holiday, that Robert Cushman found it necessary to preach on the “Sin and Danger of Self-love.”⁵ Oh, the pastoral love and daring of the Puritans! What a good reminder of our humanity and constant need of grace, which leads to true gratefulness.

Over 20 years have passed since my wife and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving on the Old Continent, and it’s one of my family’s favorites. Not just my immediate family, but our church family asks us every year if we can do it again. We can’t all meet on Thursday; most people work until 7 or 8 pm and it’s not a day one can ask off from work. Our tradition is a church meal after service. We clean our meeting hall and dress a huge table in the middle. Everyone brings something. It doesn’t look like your traditional American Thanksgiving meal because people come from all over the globe and bring food from their countries. But all who come thank God for His Providence.

We begin with a passage of Scripture, a short devotional message and sometimes take communion. Then we eat together, laugh and spend a moment publicly thanking the Lord for all He’s done. Around the table are people from every social class. There have been years when the homeless have come to celebrate with us. Generally, we have someone from every continent or at least from places I didn’t know existed before I moved to France. We sit and eat as a family, united in our Savior’s grace, and for a moment we share in the communion of the thankful. Over the years, I’ve learned that many churches all over France do this too. It’s not a new tradition, but it’s bringing together something the born again French love most: good food and fellowship to the glory of God.

Psalm 136:1 says:

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” There is no better way to spend this Thanksgiving, or for that matter, the rest of the year, than to allow this Word to fill our hearts and lead our minds to remember all the good the Lord has done for us.

Notes:

_{¹ The Pauquunaukit Wampanoag leader who sought an alliance with the colonies of New England and was able to maintain peace throughout his lifetime.
² Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory, Fleming Revel publications, 1977. 137-144.
³ Idem.
⁴ Idem.
⁵ Idem}.

There is no difficulty in finding things to gripe and complain about. Have you noticed? However, it takes a transformed perspective, an act of the will and practice to see and commend “the good and excellent” (Romans 12:2). We tend to ignore, neglect, pass over or be quiet about the things that are good. At the same time, we are quite vocal about the hard, uncomfortable, distasteful, dirty and “needs improving” things in our lives.

We need to practice a new perspective.

Obviously, to practice a new perspective, we need a new perspective, much like Elisha’s servant did. The story is told in 2 Kings 6:8-23. Elisha’s servant was concerned and worried one morning when he awoke to see the prophet’s house surrounded by enemy forces. Elisha was unfazed and prayed for his servant, “LORD, please open his eyes, and let him see.” When the servant looked again, he saw that the enemy was surrounded on all sides by horses and chariots of fire. The enemy was temporarily blinded and routed to the King of Israel. Once the servant received his divine perspective, he no longer complained about the enemy. Isn’t this the perspective we all want and long for? Well, let’s begin by praying for this!

Next, we need to start to look for things to be thankful for.

That means we must make a choice to see the good. The “good” is there in every place; it is just a matter of finding it. No wonder the apostle Paul exhorts us, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Our transformed perspective will find those “good” things.

Once we find the good, it is time to vocalize our thanksgiving. It’s important to put it into words. Obviously, our thanksgiving begins with God, who has made “every good gift” (James 1:17). From there, we need to thank others around us who are doing “good” or have participated in bringing out the “good” that God has intended.

The more we practice thanksgiving, the more it becomes part of our lifestyle.

Personally, I prefer to be around thankful people. They have a way of making me aware not only of all the “good” in my life, but also the faithfulness of God, and particularly, His constant goodness.

So let’s extend our thankful attitudes beyond Thanksgiving Day. Let’s ask God to make us His thankful people who practice the divine activity of giving thanks always!

“The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history, but honest and inclusive history.”
– James Loewen, University of Vermont professor, bestselling author.

Salt or pepper? Onion or garlic? On your Thanksgiving turkey, which one from each of these savory combos would you give up? Rather tough choice for the “true foodie.” In fact, if enough “true foodies” were polled on this question, I’m quite sure more than one would cut around the whole “either/or” paradigm and simply ask, “Why do we have to choose one or the other to begin with?”

Now, is there a point to this food lover’s intro, or is my excitement over claiming the “drum and thigh” from this week’s holiday bird simply betraying me? But there is a point—a very big one, in fact.

You see, when one starts talking about the beloved traditions of America’s present-day Thanksgiving culture alongside the horrific accounts of America’s bloody past with American natives and one of the earliest Thanksgiving feasts, many will feel that they suddenly have to choose one or the other—“either/or:” Do I retain my ignorance so I can continue enjoying the regularly scheduled program of big menus and big family gatherings—chanting “Happy Thanksgiving” guilt-free? Or by acknowledging the horrors upon which this holiday was built, do I have to surrender the entire tradition I hold so dearly?

The good news is that we don’t have to choose either/or. With the Bible as one’s authority and guide, we can acknowledge the ugliness, injustice and pain of the past—including present-day implications for countless natives—and yet, still redeem present-day Thanksgiving in the context of the Gospel.

Thus, the Christian is free to enjoy Thanksgiving as a day to “count our blessings” (Psalm 103:2), to reflect on challenges that have strengthened our faith (James 1:2-4), to provide for our own (1 Timothy 5:8), and to become all things to all men (1 Corinthians 9:19-23), redeeming opportunities to share Christ’s love (Ephesians 5:16). Just as we seize Christmas Day as an opportunity to celebrate and share the story of Christ’s blessed incarnation—knowing that December 25 is not the real birthday of Jesus, but rather some fixed date decreed by Pope Julius I (340 A.D.)—in the same way, Christians can use Thanksgiving to give thanks for the Gospel and the wonderful cross—knowing the earliest Thanksgiving revolved around much of what God hates. Also, we can seize Thanksgiving as a time to “get understanding with all our might” (Proverbs 4:7) and also to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).

Much of what we have learned in school about events revolving around the Thanksgiving holiday has been watered down or simply false.

As the late historian William F. Buckley once stated, “History is the polemics of the victor;” meaning whoever wins the battle gets to tell the story of how it happened—be it fact, or mere fiction pushed as fact. For example, in school you probably learned about the Pequot War, the battle between early colonists and the Pequot tribe. Our textbook more than likely told us that this was an “armed conflict” over trade; but in reality, it was a massacre committed by the colonists against unarmed Pequot natives. 700 Pequot natives (all that remained of the original 8,000 after years of dying from diseases brought from Europe) were ambushed and slaughtered—men, women and children—as they slept. The Pequot Massacre sealed the fate of the Pequot tribe, bringing them to extinction. It was after this gruesome massacre that the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony called for a Day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the victory in 1637. Some stories say that this celebration was even marked by colonists kicking the decapitated heads of natives up and down the streets like balls.

Here is a description of the Pequot Massacre according to the late William Bradford (1590-1657), governor of Plymouth Colony and signatory to The Mayflower Compact, in his journal, Of Plymouth Plantation:

“Those that [escaped] the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with swords, so as they quickly dispatched, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stench and the scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemies in their hands, and gave them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.”

To cover up these blatant war crimes, and so many others, the colonists “[prepared]…quantities of propaganda to overpower their own countrymen’s scruples. The propaganda gradually took standard form as an ideology with conventional assumptions and semantics. We live with it still.”¹

“We live with it still…”

Strong words to digest, yet we do live with the impact of these and other acts committed against the indigenous people of North America. On the Pine Ridge Reservation and other reservations where natives were forced to relocate, men now experience a life expectancy that is close to 60% of the life expectancy of the rest of America. Forced to move to these arid, undesirable lands, the natives on these reservations were forced to rely on government aid (welfare) for survival. No longer could they harvest familiar crops or hunt buffalo herds, because they could not leave the reservation to hunt. (Not to mention how the colonists killed millions of buffalo for their hides, leaving their meat to rot in the sun and almost rendered the animal extinct). So all this being said, is it any wonder the rate of diabetes on Pine Ridge is 800% higher than the U.S. average? Not to mention that the infant mortality rate is 300% higher than the national average and the highest in the country. The teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the national average. We should all weep when we read about these lasting effects.

Here is an interview from when ABC News journalist, Diane Sawyer, journeyed into the Pine Ridge Reservation (available through this link). It’s obvious that Sawyer was deeply moved. And as a proud native myself, who spends considerable time in native villages and reservations across America, sharing Christ’s agape love and experiencing all of this same footage firsthand, I still weep whenever I see this video. I believe Jesus still weeps as well (Isaiah 63:9).

But why is none of this ever taught?

Why are there no major campaigns to raise money for this, while we will be quick to throw a concert for any other charity? As historian Francis Jennings said, “We live with it still.” Jesus weeps over this (Isaiah 63:9); Jesus despises oppression, whether it is the recent usage of attack dogs, concussion grenades, rubber bullets and more, as the government hired private security companies to drive away peaceful protestors at the Dakota Oil Pipeline, or whether it’s covert institutionalized marginalization…Jesus despises oppression. As Christians, we should too.

“We live with it still.”

In schools, we were taught the untruth of how pilgrims and colonists came to the New World and found elusive, half-naked natives dipping behind rocks and trees in mysterious forests, rather than the truth that when the colonists arrived they found intricate native civilizations with governments, technology, irrigation and trade routes stretching to the horizon. There were even recreational parks created by natives who had mastered clearing forests with controlled fires, enabling them to create athletic fields where they played their popular sport, lacrosse. But again, we have never been taught any of this. Could this dehumanization of the native be the reason we’ve been made to view all that took place as anything except massive theft on the grandest scale? Similar to how we don’t consider the fictional Goldilocks as being a serial “breaking-and-entering” burglar simply because the owners—the bears—have been dehumanized.

As the Pequot Massacre (the context for the second Thanksgiving feast), would’ve been declared a U.N. war crime by today’s standards, if anyone takes the time to go to the United Nations website and find the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on September 13, 2007, one will see that while some 144 nations voted in favor of it, only four nations voted against it—Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. So it begs the question, if the U.S. prides itself as the most progressive superpower in the world—as our very Constitution promises “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to all—then why would they vote against something like that? Interestingly, President Obama finally overturned the negative vote in 2010. But natives in American have long since grown weary of treaties and declarations anyway.

“We live with it still.”

Now, at this point, it is timely to interject a sage quote from University of Vermont professor and bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong: “The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history, but honest and inclusive history.”

At this point, it is also only fair and prudent for me to humbly share that I am not a historian. I am a pastor and one who has answered the call to serve among my native people in remote regions, including Alaska. I tend to shy away from the word “missionary” in this context, because the word has earned a bad title in too many native communities, as up until the last century, “missionaries,” who were wolves in sheep’s clothing, forcefully took many native children from their parents to mandatory government boarding schools far away from home, where they were subjected to all forms of abuse (even sexual), beaten for speaking in their native languages and not English, and were forced to dress like English children. So again, I am not a historian, but my hope in writing this article is to lead us all to the Scriptures, to the heart of Jesus, and as curious citizens of this Information Age, to ultimately do our own research. But most of all, to ask God to aline our hearts with his toward America’s indigenous. Maybe native missions will one day become a regular discussion at the annual missions conferences of many denominations—because the harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few.

In closing, I’d like to share about one of my most profound fellowship experiences in my 20+ years of being a Christian.

Two weeks ago, Brian Brodersen invited some 35 Calvary Chapel pastors from all across the country, Canada and Europe, to meet at the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta, California, where for three days, we prayed, shared our hearts and burdens, and discussed kingdom vision and Gospel outreach. On the second day, after God had so magnanimously visited us with His Spirit during a long session of corporate prayer, we had the most amazing discussion on racial and societal tensions, cultures and subcultures, and America’s checkered past. Again, it was one of the most amazing corporate discussions I’ve been a part of.

Here was this diverse bunch of pastors: some who had megachurches, and some who had smaller churches; some who had been pastoring for 40 years, and some who had been pastoring for only two. Every age group was represented, several races, and seemingly every demographic. And as the “Spirit of liberty” was there (2 Corinthians 3:17), men felt totally free to throw out questions they always had about different races and cultures. People felt free to share hurts and pains. And praise God, people even felt free to confess being fed up with being ignorant on too many race-centered issues for too long. This was clearly a move of God. The hours raced away, and everyone remained on the edge of their seats.

Toward the end of this amazing time, someone asked, “So how do I respond in the pulpit to these racial issues that arise when I don’t know the facts, don’t know much history at all, but yet I want to learn?” Someone else then gently responded and with such joy, “That’s it! I don’t think people across all these different racial lines are expecting others to have all the answers. I think people just want us to show that we care deeply, that we’re broken about all that’s happening, and that we’re not afraid to talk about it and want to learn, and most of all, to see God work in every unfortunate situation.” It was like the Spirit of God fell upon the room all over again—also underscoring the point that all our country needs right now is something that only God can give.

We spent the rest of the night talking about poverty in all parts of the country affecting all races, even whites. We talked about Kaepernick and the NFL, the Hispanic communities and ICE, and we even talked about music artist Lecrae and his recent announcement of “divorcing” himself from “White Evangelicalism.” The Bible was our guide, and no topic was too tough to tackle and find a biblical remedy. And as we closed in prayer one last time before parting, thanking God for moving so sweetly among us, those days of us sitting in that large room was the heart and soul of what Thanksgiving is all about: love, listening, understanding and giving thanks to the Sovereign King, who reigns over every moment of history and beyond, and whose return we eagerly wait for—as only then will there be perfect peace, righteousness, equity and war no more. Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

Next Article: “Beautiful Native America: Answering the Call To Serve”

¹ The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Press.