Spiritual Covenant with Six Nations

For a little more than a decade, we as a congregation have been on a journey of trying to live into reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of this land - learning what we can, building relationships and advocating for justice. Over the years, we heard Indigenous people tell us how important it was to deal with historical and current injustices in relation to the land. Over the last few years we have been exploring the biblical teachings around relationship to land, the stories of this land, and the ways we are implicated and bear responsibility for some of those historical and current injustices.

In 2022, we began to more fully consider a particular, unique and hopeful opportunity to address some of those land injustices. We have been offered an invitation to enter into a Spiritual Covenant with Six Nations. We invite you to join us in prayer and ongoing discernment as we consider this together. This is part of a longer discernment process, and a critical part of the conversation at Stirling. We are eager to hear from as many Stirling members as possible, recognizing there will be many different perspectives.

Background on Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church and the Spiritual Covenant is linked here

Spiritual Covenant Invitation is linked here.

Treaties Recognition Week and Land Justice — information for us to consider

Treaties Recognition Week highlights the importance of treaties and is an opportunity to learn more about treaty rights and relationships. Here are some resources and examples of land justice initiatives that we invite you to explore:

• A video on the history of the Haldimand Tract featuring Phil Monture who is Mohawk from Six Nations of the Grand River and has spent more than 40 years researching this history

• Information about the Six Nations of the Grand River litigation against Canada and Ontario.  

• A map of Ontario treaties and reserves

• Whose Land app - free to download

• Reciprocity Trusts is a not-for-profit in BC that facilitates reciprocity payments from home owners, renter and businesses to local Indigenous nations

• Got Land Back, an episode of Unreserved (CBC) that tells the story of a successful return of land to a First Nation in BC.

• Treaty Land Sharing Network connects farmers and Indigenous land users on Treaty 4 and Treaty 6 territory in Saskatchewan

• The University of Waterloo now offers tuition waivers to students who are members the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Six Nations of the Grand River, bands on whose traditional territory the University of Waterloo is situated