— Indigenous Elders, students, and educators gather from across Canada to explore Indigenous Christian spirituality through lived experience, relationship, and reflection —
For twelve weeks this winter, Indigenous Elders, theology students, educators, and community members from across Canada gathered in circles to speak openly about spirituality, Christianity, identity, ceremony, reconciliation, and healing.
What emerged was more than an academic course.
It became a rare national gathering space where Indigenous Christian experiences could be shared honestly, through the voices of Indigenous Elders themselves.
Organized through partnerships between Kateri Native Ministry, Saint Paul University, Concordia University, Toronto School of Theology, and St. Thomas More College, the pilot Indigenous Christianity Course brought together people from different nations, traditions, and backgrounds to engage questions that are often deeply personal and historically complex.
The course centered lived experience. Elders spoke about faith through stories of land, language, ceremony, community, loss, resilience, and their own spiritual journeys. Students were encouraged not simply to study Indigenous spirituality intellectually, but to sit with it through listening, reflection, and relationship.
The course itself grew out of years of collaboration and trust-building between Indigenous Elders and educators including Donna Naughton, Harry Lafond, Christine Jamieson, Darren Dias, John Rice, Tom Dearhouse, Ray Aldred, Michael Doxtater, Brian McDonough, Michel Andraos and others. Conversations developed gradually through conferences, gatherings, land-based learning, and community dialogue before finally taking shape as the sold-out twelve-week course.
Throughout the program, Elders and facilitators used circles, breakout discussions, storytelling, and song to create an atmosphere grounded in Indigenous methodologies and ways of knowing. Participants were encouraged to slow down, listen carefully, and reflect deeply — an approach many described as profoundly different from traditional academic environments.
The course also created space for difficult and meaningful conversations around reconciliation, identity, and the complicated history between Indigenous peoples and Christianity in Canada. Rather than avoiding those realities, participants explored them together through honesty, respect, and lived experience.
As the weeks unfolded, students became deeply engaged, connecting discussions directly to their own lives, spirituality, and sense of self. Many participants described the experience as personally transformative.
Reflecting on the impact the course had on students, facilitator Michel Andraos shared:
“An important moment for me was to see at the end of the course how this course transformed the participants.”
The gathering also became deeply meaningful for the Elders themselves. Bringing Indigenous Christian leaders together from across the country created opportunities for mutual support, shared learning, and conversations that rarely happen within one space.
The Indigenous Christianity Course demonstrated the importance of creating environments where Indigenous voices are not simply included, but trusted as leaders, teachers, and knowledge keepers.
At a time when many people feel disconnected — from community, spirituality, and one another — the course offered something increasingly rare: space to listen deeply, reflect honestly, and reconnect through relationship and story.
For many participants, it became more than a course.
It became a place of reconnection, healing, and spiritual renewal.
If you’re interested in the 2027 Winter Indigenous Christianity Course, please follow the event on Facebook.