Indian Mission Church rooted in Methodist, Native teaching

One of two stained glass winsow panels at
the Northport Indian Mission Church that
are located on both sides of the alter.

Robert Wonegeshik Jr. stood in the altar of a tabernacle in a wooded campground south of Northport while tuning his guitar and checking the sound system.

Church service in the outdoor tabernacle was less than an hour from starting, and Wonegeshik wanted to make sure everything was ready. The annual week-long camp meeting of the Northport Indian Mission Church was just beginning, and Wonegeshik couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

It’s been a part of his life for as long as he remembers.

“I’ve been coming here since I was a little kid,” said Wonegeshik, 35, while fighting back tears in describing the emotional attachment he has to the camp and church. “I was just a little kid when I first started coming, and I have a lot of good memories. It was my earliest church experience, and I’ve carried it with me throughout my life.”

Wonegeshik credits people such as his grandfather, Roque Wonegeshik, and his father, Robert “Butch” Wonegeshik Sr., both of Northport, for instilling in him a sense of importance of the annual meeting. He also praises elders for maintaining one of Leelanau County’s oldest churches to provide Indian people with a place of worship that blends native spirituality with the teachings of the United Methodist Church.

Wonegeshik and most of worshipers at the Mission Church are also members of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa Indians, and have a deep respect for both the church and the grounds on Camp Haven Road where the annual meeting has been held for 114 consecutive years.

“I call this is our holy grounds,” said Val Maidens, who was born and raised in Northport and now lives in Traverse City. “It represents a happy time for me, and it’s a tribute to our elders for all they did and achieved. They worked together as a group and helped everyone out.”

At the camp meeting, worshipers from throughout Michigan and Canada attend, reacquaint, hear sermons from guest pastors and work to ensure that the tradition remains alive.

Maidens estimated that some 75 people would take part in the annual meeting, down from the 100 to 150 that regularly attended in the 1960s and ‘70s. In 1898, her research indicated that the District Indian Camp Meeting was attended by 700 people, and minutes from the 1905 meeting showed “2,000 whites attended this year.”

Maidens recently updated a history project that details the church’s 19th century beginnings. Her research is displayed on the bulletin board of the church that has been located on M-22 near County Road 633, about two miles southwest of Northport, since 1882. She said it is one of seven Indian Mission Churches in Michigan, all of which are under the umbrella of the United Methodist Church.

The others are the Greensky Hill Indian Mission United Methodist Church in Horton Bay, which is pastored by the Rev. Tim Wright, and Kewadin Indian Mission United Methodist Church. The Rev. Tom John is pastor of both the Kewadin and Northport mission churches. He juggles responsibility for overseeing the two congregations that are some 70 miles apart. His Antrim and Leelanau county roots are a big help, he said.

John was born and raised in Elk Rapids, where he graduated from high school in 1962. In the mid 1970s, he served as “supply pastor” at the Northport Indian Mission Church for six years. He could lead services, but because he wasn’t ordained he couldn’t serve Eucharist or conduct sacraments, weddings or baptisms. An ordained pastor served in those roles when needed.

He eventually decided to “do what’s necessary to get my credentials” to become an ordained elder and seek his bachelor’s degree. After attending Northwestern Michigan College for two years, he learned of a program in Minnesota that was a consortium of college and seminars through the National American Theological Association. It was designed to help Native Americans become ordained pastors.

He attended seminary in Minneapolis for three years, and was just three credits short of completing a master’s degree in divinity when he received an invitation to pastor on the Bad River Indian Reservation in northwestern Wisconsin, near Ironwood, Mich. John and his wife, Phyllis, accepted the offer.

“They needed a pastor, I needed a job, and I went in thinking it was only going to be a temporary assignment. We ended up staying on for 14 years,” he said.

He applied for and received a local preacher’s license because of the extensive training he already had, which allowed him to perform all church functions including weddings and baptisms.

In 1998, the Johns moved back to Michigan and Tom took a job for a year as a security guard for the Grand Traverse Band in Peshawbestown. A year later, he applied for and was accepted as the Kewadin Mission Church’s pastor, and two years ago, he took the same job in Northport.

He holds Sunday services in Kewadin at 9 a.m., then drives to Northport in time for a noon worship. The Northport church is small, with just five rows that sit at 45-degree angles on either side of the aisle.
 

Val Maidens, who headed up a history
project update of the church, stands
in fromt of the tabernacle between her
fellow church members, Everlyn and
Clarence manitowash. the Northport
couple recently celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary.

In other parts of the church are examples of the devotion to both the United Methodist doctrine and Native spirituality.

A framed charter that pays tribute to “The Methodist Men” in the church is dated May 14, 1954, and located on one wall. Another wall-hanging, entitled The End-Time Prophecies, includes sections on “What Jesus Taught About the End,” “About the Nations, Anti-Christ & Armageddon,” and “What Paul Wrote.” Another wall display lists The Beatitudes from Matthew 5:3-12.

Also displayed are “The Native American 10 Commandments.” The first commandment is, “The Earth is our Mother; care for her.” The sixth is, “Do what needs to be done for the good of all,” and the tenth reads, “Enjoy life’s journey, but leave no tracks.”

For John, the commandments are consistent with what he believes the church provides to its members.

“Speaking personally, Indian people have always been a very spiritual people. When Christianity was first introduced to us when the county was being settled, it was easy for our descendants to accept because it was so similar to our own spiritual way of life,” John said.

It wasn’t always easy, however, for the new arrivals to understand Indian beliefs, John said.

“The problem was, the missionaries didn’t see things like we did. We were called pagans, and told we couldn’t do certain things, yet we didn’t want to abandon the way we honored the Creator,” he said.

John said early supporters of the Northport Indian Mission Church overcome the mistrust, laying a foundation in faith that remains today.

“(The church) gives them a place to fit into modern dominant society, yet allows them to be who they are as Indian people without giving up their principles. Indian churches have a lot of offer other Christian churches in understanding the holistic view of all of creation,” John said.

The Rev. Marshall Collins of Northport, who pastored at the church from 1990-2000 before retiring, endorsed John’s views and looks back fondly at his years in the pulpit.

“I enjoyed it very much, especially the relationships I built with many of the elders and younger people. It’s a special place,” he said.

Mission church history goes 150 years. Read the story.