Action Plan for Reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians
A Roadmap for St Mark’s Lutheran Church
Objective
The overall objective of this Reconciliation Action Plan is to inspire and enable St. Mark’s members to put into action the words spoken in our welcoming statement at the beginning of each worship service: “We strive to follow Christ’s example through reconciliation and racial equity.” More specifically, this plan’s focus is reconciliation with our Indigenous neighbours.
Components
Recognizing that reconciliation is a complex, long-term undertaking, Social Ministry has adopted a measured approach to creating an action plan that is broken down into defined components over a specific time-period. This plan outlines three components or ‘building blocks’ that are intended to be implemented over a two-year term, after which the results and feedback will be evaluated to determine the next plan.
- Building Education and Engagement
This strategy involves providing educational opportunities and resources to congregational members that will increase understanding of the need for reconciliation, that will develop comfort in dealing with the topic, and that will encourage individuals to engage in initiatives that support reconciliation.
Actions to support this strategy include:
- Promoting the council’s endorsement of the focus on Indigenous reconciliation and describing what that focus means for our congregation
- Collaborating with our pastor, other committees and programs to identify ways to include reconciliation efforts in their work
- Hosting a Circle for Reconciliation series
- Hosting one or two annual Indigenous book or film studies
- Continuing to build our resource library on the St. Mark’s Social Ministry webpage
- Featuring monthly Indigenous topics/events in the St. Mark’s E-News
- Building Relationships
Building strong and honourable relationships with Indigenous Canadians is at the heart of the St Mark’s Reconciliation Action Plan and is an important foundation for other reconciliation strategies. This component involves inviting St Mark’s members to interact on a personal level with members of the Indigenous community by participating with existing and potentially new partners in their work with the Indigenous community and/or participating in activities with Indigenous community members.
Actions to support this strategy include:
- Inviting St Mark’s members on organized group trips to The Urban and Epiphany Indigenous Anglican Church
- Supporting programming at The Urban with volunteers (eg. women’s drop in, sharing circles, worship services, meals)
- Building Capacity
Our synodical and national church partners are involved in or developing reconciliation efforts in which St Mark’s may be able to participate. This strategy involves identifying potential partners, understanding what supports the partners need to ensure their efforts are successful and finding ways and means for St Mark’s to support their work.
Understanding that more information will need to be gathered and analyzed, the following actions have been identified so far:
- Researching ways to support the counselling program of Epiphany Indigenous Anglican Church, potentially through collaboration with the MNO Synod and the Diocese of Rupertsland
- Determining how St Mark’s can be involved in the eventual initiatives through a number of means – governance, fundraising, volunteer opportunities etc.
Implementation
The Plan is intended to be led by a Reconciliation Task Group that consists of at least three congregational members led by one or more Social Ministry Committee members.
Approved by St Mark’s Lutheran Church Council, February 2023