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Gethsemane Land Acknowledgment
Gethsemane Lutheran Church wishes to acknowledge and honor the Osage, Quapaw, Myaamia, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Kaskaskia, and Kickapoo peoples upon whose ancestral homelands we gather for worship, as well as all our Indigenous siblings who have and continue to care for this place—this land—and call it their home.
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Since Sunday, October 8, 2023, Gethsemane has spoken the above land acknowledgment statement at the beginning of each worship service at Gethsemane.
So what IS a land acknowledgment? A land acknowledgement is a way to name and honor the original inhabitants of the land on which we worship, work, and live. This is an opportunity to name the Indigenous peoples who have often been ignored or erased in history and community. Vance Blackfox, ELCA Director for Indigenous Ministries and Tribal Relations, describes land acknowledgements as a “ritual of respect and gratitude for the land and our Indigenous neighbors.” He continues: “a land acknowledgement is a ritual intended solely to show gratitude to the land and acknowledge the original and Indigenous peoples from the whom the land was stolen.” By including a land acknowledgement in our worship, Gethsemane Lutheran Church is taking a first, and important, step toward actively living into the ELCA’s Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery.
- Maryn Olson, paraphrased from the September 23 Messenger