Native American Worship

Christian Native Americans bring to worship the riches of the Christian tradition, as well as a worldview shaped by their own rich cultural history. This article describes how these two influences shape worship in some Native American Christian communities. Worldview: the Basis of Ritual Ritual may be defined as an external expression of an internal reality. Ritual, which in Native American culture takes the form of elaborate ceremonies, is intimately related with the land. Our "traditional" ceremonies are founded in our myths, which narrate the way we as humans view the creation. Our ceremonies and stories show us how we are a part of the whole family of creation and how and why we act as we do. The spirituality of our people has to deal, first of all, with the "worldview" of our people, on which all ritual must be based. The worldview of a person, or a society, is the basic view of the reality that is around that society or person. It touches the how and why things came to be a…