Richard Twiss
"sifts through myth and legend to reveal God's strategy for the nation's host people. With wit, wisdom, and passion, Twiss shows God's desire to use the cultures of First Nations peoples--in all their mystery, color and beauty."
Twiss will be Northwest Nazarene University’s guest speaker during Beloved Community week. Twiss, a member of the Sicangu Oyate Lakota from the Rosebud Sioux reservation, SD, is a popular speaker, activist, educator and author within the Native North American and indigenous community.
As a Native American (or First Nations leader), Twiss brings a fresh and unique worldview perspective about what it means to “be human and follow Jesus” in order to help his listeners learn to value and appreciate those who are different from themselves. Twiss’ engaging humor disarms audiences, opening their hearts and minds to embrace an invitation and challenge to become radically committed to “loving your neighbor as yourself.” He is committed to creating opportunities for the betterment of Native American people and communities through advancing education, culture, family and spirituality in the Spirit of Jesus.
Twiss’ presentation will focus on “making sense of diversity through the framework of trinitarian thought.” This lecture is
one of several educational events taking place during NNU’s Beloved Community celebrations January 21-25. The University has embraced the words and works of the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, and in that spirit, addresses a broader community, confronts social issues and pursues reconciliation to, in the words of Dr. King, create “a beloved community.”
Richard's book One Church Many Tribes - Serving Jesus the Way God Made You articulates a vision for Native/indigenous people being embraced as co-equals in the life of the dominant culture church, as significant contributors in shaping peoples understanding of Creator, creation and community, not marginalized as a needy mission field.
Since Columbus landed in the West Indies in 1492, Native American tribes have endured more than five centuries of abuse hypocrisy, indifference and bloodshed at the hands of the "Christian" white man. Despite this painful history, a number of Native Americans have found "The Jesus Way" and are proving to be a powerful voice for the Lord around the world. A full- blooded Lakota/Sioux whose bitterness toward whites was washed away by the blood of Christ, Richard Twiss shows that Native American Christians have much to offer the Church and can become a major force for reaching the lost. Full of wisdom, humor and passion, this book examines how the white Church can begin to break down the walls of anger, distrust and bitterness and move toward reconciliation and revival in our land.
Previous speakers during NNU’s Beloved Community celebrations have been Miniejean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, and the integration crisis in Little Rock, AK, and Charles March, professor of Theology, University of Virginia and student of the civil rights movement.
Twiss will speak during a student chapel on Wed., Jan. 23, as well as a community presentation at 7 p.m. that evening in Northwest Nazarene University’s Brandt Center. The presentation is free and open to the public. For information regarding this and other Beloved Community events, contact Dr. Steve Shaw at 208-467-8878.
Twiss' work is
"a rallying cry for the church to work as one so that the lost may learn to walk in life with beauty, along the path of the Waymaker."