I was in my first month as a pastor in northern Nevada and was anxious to begin nurturing a Native church in the Indian community. It was at a pow wow (an Indian social dance) where I got my first resistance. As I talked to a woman who knew the history of our church, she commented, "No matter what you do from that church, Christianity will always be seen as the white man's religion."

Because my philosophy of ministry was (and still is) directed primarily toward Native Americans by Native Americans, using Native American cultural forms to witness for Jesus, this woman's observation hurt deep in my soul. Yet I have heard similar statements expressed for many years now.

The woman at the pow wow was referring to the fact that for Native Americans to become Christians has often required us to divest ourselves of most of our cultural distinctives, including language, hairstyle, values, and devotional practices. It is assumed that there is nothing in Native American culture worth redeeming. This evangelistic philosophy, brought over to the New World from Europe, made the broad assumption that European culture was "Christian" and that Indians needed to conform to Euro-American culture in order for God to accept them.

R.Pierce Beaver, former professor of missions at the University of Chicago and Director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center, best summarized the view of most missionaries in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as in the first third of the 20th century in his book Introduction to Native American Church History: "Missionaries during this period believed that teaching primitive people about a 'better' way of living was part of the gospel message. Evangelization and civilization could not be separated. You could tell if an Indian was being saved from hell by the way he or she began to live like the English. The Indians' growth in the Christian faith could be measured by how well they accepted the culture and lifestyle of the missionary." This European-ethnocentric model of evangelism has caused Jesus to be relegated, in the eyes of many indigenous peoples, to one particular race. How this must grieve the heart of God!

One of the most poignant examples of this I've ever heard involved a friend of mine, a Kiowa man who, by God's grace, later became a pastor. A missionary came to some of the Kiowas' homes in western Oklahoma when my friend was eight years old and basically "guilted" the parents into sending their children to the Riverside Indian Boarding School in Anadarko, Okla. My friend's parents and some of his relatives sent a group of their sons with the missionaries who, working in conjunction with the federal government, had made this place sound special. The boys' parents and grandparents wanted them to appear their very best, so they arrived wearing their finest clothes and regalia, their long, dark hair neatly braided.

After arriving, the boys were stripped of all their clothes and regalia and assigned uniforms. They were deloused for good measure, and a bowl was put over each head as their long hair was cut off. (In Kiowa culture, as in most Indian cultures, cutting the hair is a sign of grieving or shame.) Finally they were directed to their new living quarters and sent to bed crying. The next day, Sunday, the boys were marched military-style to the chapel. Each in turn was shown a picture of Jesus and told of God's love for him.

Later that night the boys discussed this among themselves, whispering from their beds. What seemed so very strange to them was that for God to accept them, their hair had to be cut short; yet they had seen pictures with their own eyes that God's Son had long hair! It was a painful and confusing lesson.

Early in my pastoral career I met a man who was very traditional in his Indian beliefs and practiced them daily. When we first met he vowed to me that he would never go inside a white man's church as long as he lived. I listened to his reasons (which had to do with Indian boarding schools) and told him I understood. Then I invited him to attend my sweat lodge - a cleansing, Native American-type sauna in which prayers are said. He was shocked that the new preacher "held sweat," but eventually, after I attended a few sweats with him at his home, he did come to my sweat lodge.

This exchange took place over a few years. I continued to pray for him. Finally one day he walked through the doors of the church. What he found was not a "white man's church" but a church of Native American believers following Jesus and using their own Native cultural expressions and symbolism. He began coming more frequently. After nearly five years I was able to introduce him personally to Jesus Christ.

Not long after my friend's conversion, I told a group of ministers gathered for prayer at our church about his decision to follow Jesus. By coincidence, about 10 minutes later, my friend showed up at the church. Realizing who he was, one of the pastors jumped out of his chair and shook his hand, welcoming him to the kingdom of God. He cried jubilantly, "I'm so glad to hear that you're now a Christian!"

My friend stepped back. "I ain't no Christian!" he exclaimed.

The pastors were stunned. They all looked at me as though to say, "Why did you tell us he was a Christian and he isn't?"

I kept silent.

Finally one of them spoke up. "Randy told us you had recently begun following Jesus."

"Oh, I see what you mean now," he said. "Yeah, I'm following Jesus Christ - he's Grandfather's Son - but I ain't no Christian. Don't call me that."

According to a conversation I had with missiologist Ralph Winter, my friend was on solid biblical ground. Nowhere in the New Testament, Dr. Winter pointed out, does anyone ever call himself a Christian. Yes, believers were first called Christians at Antioch, but no one gave himself this title. Neither Paul nor Peter nor James nor anyone else ever identified himself as a Christian.

My point here is not to try to change people from calling themselves Christians. I have referred to myself as a Christian for more than 25 years. But we must realize that, to many people groups, the term Christian is not the good news we intend it to mean. Rather, it is the bad news of colonialism, oppression, and even genocide. It is bad news because many of those who have named themselves after Christ have acted in very un-Christlike ways; and the cultural baggage that comes with the name Christian is sometimes unnecessary, and at other times actually opposed to Christ and his purposes.

My wife, Edith, and I worked very hard in Nevada under God's leading to build a Native church that reflected Christ in our culture. In many respects we were successful. But although we added many components of Native American culture to our worship services - including drums, talking circle, smoke blessing, sweat lodge and eagle feathers (all symbolic forms used in traditional Native American worship, which we felt had enough biblical backing to be used in the church) - it still did not always "feel" like a Native church. It was only in the last two years of pastoring in Nevada, I believe, that we became a church with which Native Americans readily identified. This transition took years - and a relinquishment of power from a group of non-Indians - to accomplish.

After that non-Native group serving in leadership gave up their positions, the Indian people felt the freedom to be a church that reflected Christ in their culture. Soon afterward someone suggested rearranging the chairs in a circle. (Most of our traditions use a circle.) Then the style of governing changed to a more traditionally Native approach, and it grew from there. One day I realized we were no longer a church that did a lot of Native American things, but we were actually a Native church. Those were the years we had the greatest impact in the non-Christian Native community, and true discipleship took place. Why? Because we had finally allowed Jesus to be at home in our people's culture.

"Contextualizing" the gospel - adapting the message to the culture of the people to whom you are seeking to witness - is not unique to the Native American situation. I have spoken with African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics who recount similar experiences. It is sometimes difficult for the average American, who identifies primarily with his Euro-American or Western European roots, to grasp the differences in the way he thinks, acts, and believes from his brothers and sisters more oriented to another worldview.

When one culture is the standard by which everything else is measured, the people steeped in that culture may not feel the need to consider other perspectives. This has been true for Euro-Americans for about five hundred years. But things are changing rapidly. Soon Euro-Americans will no longer be the majority ethnic group in the United States. It behooves us as believers in Jesus to get a jump on the rest of the world in learning how to get along with each other and to appreciate our many differences, in order for Christ's witness to arise more effectively. Isn't action better than reaction?