Reconciliation

The building owned by (and sometimes referred to as) Southwest Community Church is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, part of the Secwepemc nation. The people of SWCC for the most part also live, work and play on these lands.

During our Sunday morning worship gatherings, we acknowledge the territory on which we gather and we are having conversations about the content of that acknowledgment and the practice of making them. Here are two helpful articles:
Faith Today
CBWC 2021 Annual Report

The 2021 article mentions our church and our process.

This podcast episode may also be helpful:
Regent College Podcast: Episode 105 with Dr.. Cheryl Bear.

Here are a few helpful resources:

Wonder what land you’re on? Or what land you grew up on? Check out Native Land to see what traditional territories you have lived on or travelled to, as well as resources about languages. For more language resources, see First Voices.

A commonplace awareness of Indian Residential Schools is still a work in progress in Canada. Did you live near a residential school? is a great resource so that you can see where the nearest residential school was to the places you grew up. You type in an address and it will tell you the nearest residential school and when it was in active. For many of us, we realize that this practice was happening nearby even though we may have known very little or nothing about it.

During Lent in 2021, 27 of us embarked on a course put together by the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada called Walking in a good way with our Indigenous Neighbours. The material is available to anyone who would like to sign up (for free) to access it.

A reading list for learning more about residential schools from Indigenous authors.

Here are some basic documents that will be referred to often in conversations about Reconciliation: