Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

This article focuses on the Triangle Native American United Methodist Church, which formed in Raleigh in July 2001. With around forty regular attendees, it is Raleigh's first Native American church. It meets in the Methodist Home for Children's conference room. The United Methodist Church has had a ministry to Native Americans since 1988, focusing its donations one Sunday each year to Native Americans as well as funding scholarships for Native Americans to attend divinity school.The pastor of Triangle Native American United Methodist Church, Sylvia Collins, is Lumbee. Her divinity degree is from Duke University. Darlene Jacobs, Lumbee, who attends the church, is the community service program director for the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs. She states that of the Native Americans she encounters in her work, about 90% are connected to a Christian church.The article notes that North Carolina has about seventeen Methodist churches that are primarily Native American.