Lutheran Indian Ministries

Pastoral care: to achieve the mission and vision of lim, the gospel must be shared in a manner that acknowledges local culture, customs, missionary history, and social challenges that exist in native communities. To share the gospel while addressing the high rates of domestic violence, child abuse, substance use, historical trauma, incarceration rates and suicide demonstrates how the gospel heals and restores individuals, families, and communities. Lim partners with churches that serve native people to support them in various ways. Lim identifies, mentors and supports the development of american indian/native Alaskan leaders within their community. The discipling of native peoples enables lim, by the power of the holy spirit, to bring the renewal and restoration indigenous people crave to more families and communities.

Youth/campus ministry: youth are the future in all cultures and that is true for native americans as well. Native youth have particular challenges resulting from generational trauma. In lawrence, ks, lim operates a campus ministry adjacent to haskell Indian nations university. With a student base of around 900 native students each semester, lim has opportunity to daily counsel and mentor students while showing them the true love of jesus.

Healing ministry: by providing safe places, where native people can tell their stories of abuse and addiction, and building strong ties with community members, our trained ministry staff can holistically counsel and guide them towards a path of healing. This initial step is critical to help native people break the cycle of intergenerational paid, suffering, sorrow, addiction, and affliction that has haunted and plagued them for hundreds of years. To prepare churches to be part of the solution, lim equips, trains, supports, and encourages existing faith communities to better serve the local community. The local church must become a place where the gospel heals and instills hope from within the community.

Mission awareness: we believe that our ministry extends both to the native american peopl we serve and from them back to the wider church. Many are not aware of the challenges facing native americans. Without the knowledge of the history of native people - especially the history of artrocities inflicted directly by the church, it is not possible to understand why so few native americans know jesus as their lord and savior. It is also not possible to understand that the approach of proclaiming the gospel must be delivered differently than what has been tried and failed for over 500 years. Lim produces materials that it makes available to supporters. We also educate supporters and the wider public through our wwebsite and other means like social media.