Healing Minnesota Stories

As featured in:

• Star Tribune
• Pioneer Press
• Baptist News Global

Healing Minnesota Stories creates understanding and healing between Minnesotans. Through Dakota Sacred Sites Tours and Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs we connect Native American and non-Native people, particularly those in various faith communities.

Native people have suffered deep trauma over many years, losing their land, language, and culture, and all who call Minnesota home are the lesser for it. While many people and institutions contributed to that trauma, it happened with the full participation of Christian churches. We all still need healing, healing is doable, and churches have a role to play in healing.

We believe in the power of healing stories. Stories heal because they make invisible pain visible. The listener and storyteller are both healed by their acts.

Churches and all faith communities can play a key role in promoting and experiencing healing by opening ourselves to our own history and listening to the stories of Native people. Through the sharing and retelling of old traumatic stories, we can create new positive ones.

This effort began in 2012 and continues to bring together Native and non-Native people to share stories and increase awareness of the value of American Indian language, culture, and our shared history. In 2024 over 500 people have participated in a Healing Minnesota Stories Dakota Sacred Sites Tour.

GET INVOLVED

Invite a Speaker to teach your faith community about Native American spirituality, local history, barriers to free practice of Native religions, controversial images in State Capitol art, or show films on the U.S.-Dakota War or the Doctrine of Discovery.

Attend a Sacred Sites Tour. Tours are led by Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs (Mohican). The tours offer an opportunity to learn about Minnesota history from a Native perspective through story-telling and experiencing the sites in silence / meditation / reflection.