Ep. 169: Exploring the World – First Nation Spirituality

Kourtney Cromwell:
Welcome to the indoubt podcast where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week, we talked with guests to help answer questions of faith, life and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca, or indoubt.com

Ryan McCurdy:
Today, I had the opportunity to sit down with Temera Millar, who’s the Director of Recruitment of the North American Indigenous Ministries. And we were able to sit down and have a conversation about some of the differences between the Christian faith and some cultural First Nations beliefs and the way of doing life. And we really got into cultural values and cultural things that are important and we did talk about how to share our faith with First Nations people. And so this is a conversation about mission, this is a conversation about understanding different cultural backgrounds. This is an awesome opportunity for us to listen in and hear on another cultural background that were unfamiliar with. So Temera has a lot of great insight for us. So make sure you listen in and hear what she has to say.

Ryan McCurdy:
So today I have with me to Temera Millar, who is the Recruitment Director for the North American Indigenous Ministries. Temera-

Temera Millar:
Hi.

Ryan McCurdy:
Thanks for being here.

Temera Millar:
Thank you.

Ryan McCurdy:
Thanks for being here so much. How are you doing?

Temera Millar:
I’m doing okay. A little nervous. But okay.

Ryan McCurdy:
This is great. This is great. This is fun. So, maybe Temera for us for today you could start by sharing a little bit of your story. What did you grow up in? And what’s your walk with Jesus like, and how did you get to the point where you’re at now?

Temera Millar:
I grew up just north of Whistler in a First Nations reserve called Mount Currie, amongst a very large, extended family. In my culture, family’s very important so I grew up just always with my cousins, a lot of outdoor time living off the land, enjoying nature and animals and really for me, I had almost two lives my life at home on the reserve, and then life at school, which was culturally very different. And so I spent a lot of my life switching between two cultures.
Later on, in high school at 18, I became a Christian and it felt like I continued to live two lives. I kept my First Nations identity and friends and university separate from my Christian friends. And so those two didn’t mix. And at some point, maybe in third year of university, I decided that I was going to bring those two worlds together and not keep them separate. And it was a life-changing moment for me in my identity as a First Nations Christian.

Ryan McCurdy:
So what was the big shift for you? What was the big change?

Temera Millar:
Well being at young adults group a lot of my friends did not really know my background or my life story and I was standing there talking with people and they were laughing about something I had no connection to. And I realized I felt very much like the outsider. And I decided to just blurt out whatever I was thinking because my childhood experiences were different. And they stopped their laughter and looked at me with wide eyes, and I started laughing because what was funny to me wasn’t funny to them but I realized that I didn’t have to be two different people.

Ryan McCurdy:
And so I’m curious and I really am, this is speaking out of curiosity, I have limited awareness and understanding of First Nations Indigenous way of life. And I’m just saying, it’s out of ignorance, I’m curious, what was it like growing up culturally for you? Growing up on a reserve and what would some of the things be that you’d say we’re the hallmarks of that upbringing?

Temera Millar:
I grew up in a family that really fought for our right as First Nations people and so I grew up strongly aware that we were the host people of this land that we had rights to land and so for me my identity was fairly firm in being First Nations but there was people that still denied their Aboriginal ancestry, people that would just try to pretend they weren’t First Nations because the racism was so strong and the segregation was still so strong. There wasn’t a lot of mixing between Canadians and First Nations people, we stayed separate and a lot of that has to do with history, colonialism, and basically working towards removing all of our culture which was a goal in colonialism.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, totally. And so what would be in your experience, what was the biggest change from the faith background that you had grown up with and then now the faith in Christ?

Temera Millar:
When I was in seminary I studied different religions or different spiritual beliefs and it was then that I started to really examine what I believed as a child and as a teenager and realized I grew up in a lot of, for me personally, a lot of fear of this spiritual dimension. Fear in the sense that the spirits had certain things that needed to be done so they could be, the word is appeased. So we had kind of protection things that we wore, or that we did, a lot of cleansing ceremonies, and I actually had a very strong awareness of the spiritual dimension.
What I grew up calling was bad spirits or evil spirits, and then there was also good spirits. And so as a new Christian, I would say I faced a lot of spiritual battles. And I know that Satan was not happy with my new Christian faith, and I would say a lot of that has dissipated in that I don’t see the spirits as much as I used to, but I do sense when something is evil and now I have a new understanding of Jesus’s sacrifice and his blood, and just the protection that I have in my faith with him.
And those are a lot of strong Christian words with a lot of Christian understanding but for me, a lot of times I will pray when I go to a new location or if I sense incursion from spirits then I pray through protection through Jesus.
I’m just thinking about how my perception of my culture changed. As a new Christian, I think that my thought process changed so much with the presence of the Holy Spirit and so the sorting through the cultural component came a bit later. I suffered a lot of anxiety and anger and so when the Holy Spirit entered, I had some people pray over me and really fear dominated my thought process constantly. And when these guys prayed for me, these six men, I was just blown away with how much more space I had to think and just knowing his instant healing of some of this anxiety and fear.
I mean it didn’t all go away but for me, the internal healing and change and transformation, I opened my mind to be able to look at other things in life. And so culturally, it took me almost a year to be able to say I was a Christian, even though I went to church on Sunday, in youth group or young adults group and so I know that because church was often joked about or people would use Jesus’s name as a swear word, people would mock the Bible and so I was afraid, in a sense of what people would think of me, even though I was living my walk as a Christian.
And so figuring out First Nations culture and Christianity, it came and I remember asking a mentor, how do I do these two things? How do I be a Christian and First Nations? And what he said to me was, you’re a Christian first, and then you’re First Nations, which I understand where he’s coming from, or where he was coming from. But Christianity, early missionaries were very paternalistic in their approach to missions and the view of First Nations culture was that it was all evil and all bad and so for me, it wasn’t a simple answer of I’m Christian then I’m First Nations. Because your world view, your values, your thought processes, your communication, all of that is developed in your culture and in your family of origin and your life experiences. So, yes, I had lots of transformation but there’s components of that I needed to hold on to, to keep who I was.
I’ve been a Christian 24 years now and it’s still a journey of sorting through some of these things. Learning to respond to the Holy Spirit’s discernment when I look at aspects of just life and culture, and my heart connected to him to sort through what can be redeemed and what cannot.

Ryan McCurdy:
That’s cool. Yeah, I think that even that picture that at the end that you just said is like, what can be redeemed and what cannot because as you were even speaking I was thinking about there are elements of culture that can be redeemed. The first question I have is this, why do you think people from different cultures have that mentality of that’s wrong or that’s evil without even investigating it? Why do you think that is?

Temera Millar:
When you study physiology you come across the term ethnocentrism, which is humans naturally when they are faced with something different, assume or quickly think the other is wrong. So when we come across a culture that we did not grow up in, and maybe they value something more than I do or something even opposite than what a person values, the response typically is wrong. And I spent a long time, a couple years just when the thought came up with that is wrong, or judgment, I would stop and evaluate personally why I was feeling that and thinking about just because I knew that my instinctual response wasn’t always the right response. And so as you stop, I would actually put a stop sign in front of my eyes.
And I remember a man with Tourette’s, and I taught special needs students, but I had just a knee-jerk reaction of, “I’m frustrated, I’m trying to study, he’s swearing over there in the corner,” and my knee-jerk reaction was judgment. And for me that moment, I realized I need to start paying attention to all my knee-jerk responses. And so that’s when my journey started of evaluating my thought process towards others, whether it be culture or how people look, how people talk. So, I think it’s part of our human nature, very sadly, that we judge others, and we respond to different as wrong.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah. And that’s the sad part is that we, we might just think there’s different values expressed and there’s different hierarchy of values and therefore we have difference in hierarchy of values. So, therefore, let’s just avoid each other. Or let’s just let’s turn a blind eye. Because when I let somebody else’s values confront myself, it challenges what I believe about myself, and challenges about who I think I am and how I live in the world and how I interact with others.

Temera Millar:
A lot of what we exhibit in our Christian faith, our culture of Christian faith, isn’t necessarily, sadly, the values of the Scriptures. We tend to focus on things that shouldn’t be focused on. And so to take a culture and say this is Christian and layered over top of another and so you have to behave this way. For me going to church was a struggle, I would say for about 12 years, I went to church on my own, and I would pray before I left home, I’d pray before I crossed the doors, some to when I started driving to church I’d pray in the parking lot. Just that God would help me to cross over culturally, and I was wanting to honour him by going to church, and I believe fellowship was important. But I also felt very much out of place and in that I wasn’t understood or fully accepted, even though it was my Christian family.

Ryan McCurdy:
For all of us who are created on planet Earth, we’re all on the same level and there’s no hierarchy, and I think that’s a beautiful piece of the gospel. You can’t earn it. You don’t deserve it. And so, I mean, maybe even in that, are there some differences that you would say are present in some of the Christian faith, and the Christian worldview even such as the story of the gospel, the message of the gospel, the work of the gospel of the good news, and what would be some of the differences in some of the First Nations way of faith and belief.

Temera Millar:
I believe that many First Nations people are spiritual people that we have a connection to the spiritual dimension and awareness of it. I did a Biblical study on the one another’s and there’s just so many scriptures in there that connected to me and my upbringing within my family. So living in harmony with one another, encouraging one another, admonishing one another and holding each other up.
I mean, in all humanity, there’s dysfunction. So I mean, we didn’t always do it right, but I did learn how to value my family first, how to value other people, in a sense more important than me. And so I’ve had to hit burnout almost a couple times in ministry just because I gave too much without enough filling up from the Lord. And I think a lot of that has to do with how I was taught to serve, how I was taught to work hard and love others and support others. So a lot of the things that happened in our history made us survivors in a lot of ways but we also, I could speak for my family, we learned to come together and support each other in good times, and also in the really hard times.
And so, yeah, we make mistakes, and we hurt one another, but we stick together and that’s a value that I’ve always held on to. I say when I look at things I look through the lens of relationship, just because I was taught that relationship is very important And maintaining harmony in a relationship. And so I think relationship and family would be something that would be core across many First Nations cultures.
I read an article once, and the term that was used was called Jagged Worldviews Colliding. And for me, I was studying leadership, but we have the Western culture and we have the First Nations culture and then they’re there hitting each other, in our existence in life, in our governance in our identity as people and they’re trying to fit together, but they almost clash completely in certain areas. And so then just think of like two comments hitting each other and exploding. And what do we do with all those pieces? And so, for me, I believe that the church can learn from me, my people about acceptance, about perseverance about family and relationship and community. And those are some of the things that I know my culture has done well.

Ryan McCurdy:
What would be something that you would hope to communicate, or you would hope that people like me would understand about First Nations communities in culture?

Temera Millar:
I think the sad part is that Canadians typically don’t know the history and what has been done and what has happened amongst First Nations people and so when they see people that are suffering or hurting, there’s just judgment and prejudice and thought process of, well, they should just make things better and change their lives and I heard someone say once that if you break somebody’s leg, how can you expect them to walk tomorrow? And so just I oftentimes just remember that. A lot of First Nations people face trauma that’s reoccurring. And so we often times don’t even have enough space in life to deal with one trauma before another trauma happens. And these are really intense trauma, suicides, car accidents from drinking and driving, just violence, tragic death, health issues.
There’s issues of housing and mould, like in I mean, water is another big issue and a lot of communities, poverty, lack of employment. So all these negative things are impacting our people. And so what I often challenge people, Christians, Canadians to do is learn the history. Learn what’s actually happening in your own country amongst the host people this land and from knowledge. My hope is always compassionate and understanding. And I think that’s something that we a lot of Canadians lack.

Ryan McCurdy:
It sounds like you’re even saying it’s like, hey recognize the big picture. Just because you see, somebody may be having a tough day today. And just be like, hey, get a job. You mean like, it’s like when people have a conversation with somebody who’s gone through really life-altering experience or a season of loss or grief and then you’re just like, Hey, things will be okay. I was like I’m sorry what? Things are just gonna be okay just because you said there okay? There’s deeper hurt or there’s deeper need, how could we learn in that? How can we grow in our understanding of that?

Temera Millar:
One thing I was just thinking of is a lot of Christians come across as very judgmental, intentionally or not intentionally. I challenge people also to, to see the individual in front of them and meet them where they’re at. And so for me as an early Christian, I had all these hopes, and I saw what Christ had done in my life and how he had transformed me and helped me basically take a different direction in life, in many different areas of life. And so now what I do is when I’m interacting with their person, I look at them, and I say, what’s important for the next step, not looking if their whole life was changed, and everything was perfect, according to how I would identify it is but to help them make one step of change that is for the better can because when we judge them the barrier gets even thicker. And people just close off their hearts and their minds to communication. And so then we don’t get to share who Jesus as if the barrier is so thick.

Ryan McCurdy:
Maybe off that, how do I best share my faith with somebody who’s part of the First Nations communities?

Temera Millar:
Earlier you were using the word hierarchy and for me, my people have been in a lot of ways an oppressed people, especially when you start to study the culture, you can see how this has been done and how it continues in many ways to be done, our people are pushed out. And so when people are oppressed, they’re seen as less than and not equal. And so I say be a learner because when you’re a learner, it creates, in a sense, equality and also, it’s looking at the other as more important in that moment.
When you see the culture, or you see the people often what I do is I try and find immediately what’s their passion, what do they love? What will they talk about? And it may not have any connection to me as an individual, but I want to find out, I want them to talk. I want the other person to be the director of the conversation to be the person in the center of it. And so I listened for the words that come up about a topic and then I started to ask them questions about it might be fishing, it might be soccer might be rodeo, let them tell you about their passion. And as they are communicating there you become the learner. I spend a lot of time listening to how much am I talking? How much is the other person talking, just basic communication things?
And I’m very Western in my direct communication, when I go home, I have to actually work on my non direct communication, reading body cues, facial expressions, subtleties of words, because harmony is important we as Westerners, or people as Westerners, are used to a direct answer yes or no means yes or no. But when you’re trying to maintain in harmony and relationship here, yes may be a yes to save the relationship but may actually be a no.

Ryan McCurdy:
Right.

Temera Millar:
And so just recognizing the differences in communication, and then building trust is a really important element. Authentic and real trust and that takes you being vulnerable yourself not being the person that has it all together. Being real about the heartaches in your own life and your own experiences. So I believe God uses our heartaches, and our hardships to help us connect with others. And but that takes being vulnerable and genuine. When I went to Israel couple of years ago, I just faced the reality that Jesus lived in a cross-cultural community. And -and he broke down the barriers. And he crossed into areas that he shouldn’t have according to culture. And he lived by the culture in some ways, and in other ways, he broke that to show who he was, to share who he was, to minister to heal, to do works and all within a very cross-cultural community. And so, we think that it is so very different than what we live in today but we have multicultures trying to coexist in our society today and Jesus is the best example.
Paul lived it and wrote about it and so we have a lot to learn. And for a lot of people that have never cross the barrier to meet a First Nations person or interact I say start trying praying for one relationship and because for a lot of Canadians, just even one genuine relationship with a First Nations person is a good big step. And so seek out the opportunities to meet First Nations people and to build that relationship. It’s a starting step.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Temera, this has been a very insightful conversation for me and I feel like I’ve learned a lot. And I feel like I’ve garnered a new perspective. Thanks so much for being here with us today.

Temera Millar:
Thanks for having me.

Ryan McCurdy:
Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of indoubt with Temera Millar as we heard from her as she shared about her experience coming to faith in Christ and growing up in a First Nations reserve and just some of the nuances of that and the challenges of that and being part of two different cultures. And so this has been an awesome conversation of what it means to love our neighbour, especially when they’re very different from us.
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Kourtney Cromwell:
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