By Lindsey Carraway
Writing Specialist
Seats encircled the sanctuary and the humming harmony of Choctaw worship warmed the room as the gathered assembly at the first annual Family Conference for Choctaw Churches joined together in a traditional prayer song, asking the Holy Spirit to fill their lives.
“Keep singing those songs. Keep telling the stories that you have,” urged guest speaker, Dr. Mark Custalow, after listening to the traditional hymn. “Sing it at home, with your families, and at church when you gather, because when you stop singing those songs, the songs die with us, and the next generation doesn’t have that anymore. That’s priceless.”
During the two-day conference held April 17-18 at Hope Indian Baptist Church in Choctaw, Custalow imparted God’s design for life, marriage, and family as shown throughout Scripture. As a former North American Mission Board missionary and member of the Mattaponi and Chickahominy East tribes, he emphasized the overall lostness of Native American communities, while noting the exception of the Choctaw people.
“As I’ve traveled Native America in Canada, Alaska, the lower 48, East, West, North, South – I’ve seen pockets and evidences of where the Gospel took root,” said Custalow, “and your people, the Choctaw people, are representative of one of those pockets where the Gospel took root a long time ago and is still living today. But nine out of 10 Native people, our people, don’t know Jesus.
“As a missionary working to take the Gospel to Native American communities, it’s really difficult to plow that ground because it’s so hard and rocky spiritually. But I listen to songs like this, and they encourage me, because they show that the Gospel was preached and proclaimed, and accepted and embraced, and is being passed on from generation to generation to generation.”
Legacies of Faith
The legacy of that kind of generational faith echoes like a song throughout his family’s history, said Custalow. His prayerful great-grandmother taught his hardworking grandfather “how to know and love Jesus. She modeled for him what it looked like to meditate and commune with God.”
As a young boy, whenever Custalow visited his grandparents on the reservation, he always found his grandfather sitting in his chair, reading his worn King James Bible.
“Papa was a deacon at the small Indian church there in the community, and a Sunday school teacher,” said Custalow, “and he radiated the presence of God. He was meek, he was humble, and he was godly.”
Every night, after enjoying a delicious meal prepped by his grandmother, the parents and children gathered in the living room and listened to his grandfather read from the Bible. When he was finished, no one spoke or walked away. Each person got on their knees and prayed as a family, every night.
“That was formative for me,” Custalow affirmed. “My grandfather’s life made an impact on me as his grandson.”
Custalow and his cousin, who also serves as a pastor, love sharing the stories about this transformative faith that has resonated personally and generationally.
“The Scripture says when you fear the Lord, when you walk with the Lord, when you obey the Lord, that God will bless you and your children and their children to the third and fourth generations,” said Custalow. “I’m blessed today because my grandfather and grandmother walked with Jesus. I’m blessed today because my mom and my dad walked with Jesus. Now my wife and I have been married for 37 years with two children, seven grandchildren, and that legacy is continuing.”
Custalow recognized that his history is not everyone’s story. But he encouraged attendees who might not have a legacy of faith to be the first to establish a new trajectory for their family. He also challenged families to “adopt” others into their legacy and see how God molds people through open arms.
God’s Design for Family
“Family is an institution created by God, and God wants us to model family life in a way that He prescribes,” said Custalow. “If we designed family, we would mess it up. God’s design for family is perfect.”
Custalow described how the world tries to define the individual and the family on a scale of two extremes. Either side ends up breaking lives.
If men and women are defined with no distinction between roles, “the attempt to obliterate differences leads to the emasculation of men and the defeminization of women,” he explained.
“When there are no distinct differences for a child’s father and mother within the family, there’s really no longer any need to have children raised by the family. Society raises children. Within the realm of sexuality, homosexuality and lesbianism are approved because there is no distinction made between men and women, and people make up our own rules and do what we want to do.”
Conversely, Custalow continued, when men and women are not treated as equals, the stronger overcomes the weaker. An authoritarian man rules over his family instead of serving them. Women are dehumanized, dishonored, and disrespected, which opposes God’s perfect design that values and honors women.
Custalow reminded attendees of God’s perfect design “that emphasizes equality and differences in unity all at the same time.” Men and women are equally valuable in the eyes of God, and their differences and distinct roles build up the family and the church in unity.
“Unless we are first in Scripture and understand God’s perfect design for humanity, and unless we teach that intentionally, we’re throwing our kids to the wolves and they will not survive. They will not have healthy lives, they will not have healthy identities, they will not be healthy husbands or wives, and they will not be healthy moms or dads. They will not raise healthy kids and grandkids because they will be void of the biblical teaching on what God says about His perfect design for humanity.”
To help combat cultural sins and explain God’s perfect design, Custalow suggested parents and grandparents prepare by studying the Scripture and then intentionally follow through by talking to children at home or during a family devotion time. Allowing space for them to speak and ask questions without shame, said Custalow, can create open and honest conversations.
In response, conference attendee Marion Thomas committed to having these conversations with her four grandchildren. She commented that she has already seen how they come across unbiblical beliefs on their phones and games every day.
“They’re growing up and they’re going to get used to these things unless we pray with them and talk to them,” said Thomas. “In this world, we’ll always be facing the devil going against us. So that is why I want to know how to teach God’s Word to my grandchildren.”
The Family Conference for Choctaw Churches was hosted by the Multicultural Ministries department of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board. Your gifts to the Margaret Lackey State Offering fund encouraging conferences which equip the various cultures of Mississippi Baptist churches to make disciples at home and beyond.
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