Greensky Hill Church welcomes guest pastor this Sunday
CHARLEVOIX — Greensky Hill Indian United Methodist Church invites the community to a special service with guest speaker, Dr. Casey Church, 10 a.m., Sunday, June 18 at 8484 Greensky Hill Road in Charlevoix and online at www.facebook.com/groups/173854422675352/. All are welcome and a Zoom coffee hour starts one-half hour after the live service ends.
Church's presentation is titled, “Jesus is Doing a New Thing: No Longer Putting Old Wine into New Wine Skins,” inspired by Isaiah 43:19.
Church (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi) is an author, indigenous missiologist, church planter and pastor at Good Medicine Way in Albuquerque New Mexico. Good Medicine Way is a new ministry start with an “indigenous expression of church” held weekly in the lower level of University Heights UMC in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Good Medicine Way runs a hybrid format with services live in person, via Zoom, and livestreaming on Facebook Live. All messages are archived on Facebook and on YouTube. The gathering is a place of worship honoring Jesus in a context sensitive to the Native Americans. Good Medicine Way gathering worships with Native drumming, shakers and singing, as well as reading from the new “First Nations version” of the Bible. The First Nations version was translated by Native followers of Jesus who together wrote the New Testament in a (thought for thought) paraphrase according to a Native American worldview and vernacular. Casey and wife Lora (Navajo) reside in Albuquerque where they have raised their five children.
Through Church’s book, “Holy Smoke: The Contextual Use of Native American Ritual and Ceremony,” he educates people and ministries on how to implement new models of reaching Native North Americans with the gospel. The book has been translated into Spanish and most recently into French.
Church received his doctor of missiology degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and is a licensed local pastor receiving his license from the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. He is also a board member of Indigenous Pathways, an international ministry dedicated to the development and articulation of Indigenous perspectives in theology and practice. In June of 2021, Indigenous Pathways received accreditation from Association of Theological Schools. Church is an indigenous instructor teaching “Indigenous Spirituality and Formation” and “Missional Ecclesiology and Practice” for the accredited seminary NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community.
Previous services and more information are available at www.greenskyhill.org.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Greensky Hill Church welcomes guest pastor this Sunday
