Riding the Waves of Grief
Join Wayne Stapleton and Parry Stelter as they explore the intersection of Indigenous experience, grief, Christian faith, and reconciliation. The hour-long conversation will begin with Parry’s personal and family story as an Indigenous Christian, including the intergenerational impact of residential schools, broken family relationships, cultural loss, racism, and the enduring grief these experiences have produced within Indigenous communities.
From there, the dialogue will broaden to consider grief as a shared human experience, including the ways both Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals carry loss, broken relationships, misunderstanding, and mistrust. The conversation will then explore how the Gospel speaks into grief – through a Jesus who weeps, enters human sorrow, invites the weary to come to him, and promises that suffering will not have the final word.
Finally, Wayne and Parry will consider what faithful Christian reconciliation can look like today: telling the truth about history, listening before attempting to lead, developing genuine relationships rather than simply creating programs, confronting racism and paternalism, distinguishing the Gospel from cultural colonization, and recognizing that God may already be at work in people and communities before Christians arrive.
Drawing particularly from Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10, the conversation will invite Christians to approach cross-cultural ministry with humility – prepared not only to share Christ but also to listen, learn, build relationships, and allow God to transform them through the encounter.