The Chickasaw Nation: What The Church Can Learn From Them

Since moving to Ada, one of the things that has struck me the most is the Chickasaw Nation. If you’re not familiar, historically the Chickasaw were known for their military prowess and were often referred to as the “Spartans of the Lower Mississippi Valley.” This reputation was due in part to their strategic skills in warfare and their strong military alliances. Pairing this with their skilled trade with colonists, the Chickasaw were a strong, resourceful, and resilient people.

However, due to trade with the Europeans, they also suffered from diseases brought by the colonists, which decimated their population. By the 1830s, the Chickasaws were a shell of their former greatness. And due to President Andrew Jackson’s “Indian Removal Act,” the Chickasaw, along with other tribes, were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands to Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. This was a devastating journey marked by suffering, disease, and a high mortality rate.

 What blows me away is that this annexed, sickly tribe of the 1830s has become one of the largest economic powers not just in Ada, Oklahoma, but in the state of Oklahoma as a whole. The Chickasaw have invested in gaming and casinos, medical facilities like hospitals, parks and recreation, manufacturing, retail, finance, and hospitality. They are now one of the largest contributors to jobs in Oklahoma. What is most interesting about the Chickasaw is how they have banded together to build a brighter future for themselves and for their children. They could have given up; they could have viewed the oppression by the state in a fatalistic way and just quit. However, they decided to invest in their future and in the future of their children.

     I think the Chickasaw have a lot to teach the church in this regard. For the past 100 years, Western Christianity has believed in a fatalistic eschatology that has dramatically impacted their participation in culture. The concept of a pre-tribulation rapture view often instills an “escapist” mentality in the Western church, affecting its approach to discipleship. This perspective can lead to a focus on personal salvation and imminent departure from earthly troubles, rather than on building long-lasting, transformative discipleship in society. As a result, there’s a diminished emphasis on Christians’ roles as agents of change in various societal domains. But even outside of cultural impact, the church has focused more on events that draw crowds and make converts (i.e., instant gratification), as a replacement for things like catechism, discipleship, and long-term investments in our youth.

Wise men and women leave an inheritance for their children’s children (Proverbs 13:22). To be a wise church, we must shift our focus from the event-driven systems that provide immediate gratification and direct our focus toward the delayed gratification of discipleship. What would it look like if you did not spend all your time and energy packing out an event, but spent a whole year pouring your life into just one person? At the end of that year, you and that other person both poured your life into one person each. By year 3, you would have eight people in the discipleship pipeline; by year four, you would have 16 people being discipled. At this rate, it would only take 33 years to disciple 7.8 billion people.

Beloved, I implore you, to take a lesson from the Chickasaw. Things in the West seem bleak, pastors falling into scandals, churches being accused of abuses, and odd and strange doctrines have invaded the church. But we cannot keep our eyes on the giants in our present; we have to keep our eyes on the future. Do not forget our children and our children’s children. We have to live our lives for the mission of Jesus, the mission of discipleship. If we don’t, we will end up being responsible for producing the shallow church and the evil culture that we are so afraid of.

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