Sun dances and 3 on 3 basketball tourneys

I read with interest a passage from the book On the Rez by Ian Frazier recently.  The book chronicles a relationship between Frazier and a Native American named Le and the friendship and life lessons the two share.  Frazier chronicles a conversation he overheard in a restaurant which he describes as bordering on an argument.  The discussion involved "white guys dancing". (p 53)

"My cousin was saying 

that there was too many white guys dancing at the sun dances on the reservation last summer.  Him and his friends think letting white guys or any non-Indians in ruins the ceremonies.  They don't think outsiders should be allowed even as helpers or water carriers.  They say that you let white guys buy the food and the firewood, the way some sun dances do, and then you've gotta let 'em dance, and then pretty soon people who don't know anything are running the whole ceremony.  And he's right that there was hundreds of white guys goin' to the sun dances last summer.  But I say, if a person's heart is good, let him participate in a respectful way.  There's non-Indian people that love the sun dance and are really sincere.  You just have to be sure that you have elders and medicine men who run the ceremony as it's supposed to be."

That passage came alive for me because I just returned from a community development venture to the Tohono O'odom Indian Reservation in Sells, Arizona where our team, among other things, attempted to take part in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament hosted by an evangelical native american outreach group (interestingly, founded by an anglo).  Our team members interested in playing were told the tournament was only open to "locals" and then that our group could play if they could have 2 locals on their team, and then finally that it would be really best if our guys didn't play at all.

It was an awesome experience for us for a few reasons.  Our team is mostly anglo, affluent, guys.  Probably not too many of whom have ever been disqualified from something because of their ethnic background or because of where they came from.   So that was cool.

Also, we debated whether that was a good rule- on the one hand it was because we were in the process of trying to understand that community development ventures were really about serving the vision of the local community and their leaders and that native americans- even though they were actually "outsiders" to this particular community were automatically more qualified to build social capital than we were.

But most importantly, we realized that it's ok for outsiders to engage in these sorts of activities whether we find ourselves the outsider or the insider as long as " a person's heart is good" and he participates in a respectful way and that you realize that there are different people that love aspects of one another's culture and are really sincere; and that the stakeholders who understand the endeavor best are the ones who run it (or lead it).

So lessons learned- my bad: questions raised:

The things that we do in ministry as leaders: is our heart good?  Do we really believe this stuff we talk about?  Is it capable of what we read about in the Bible for us? Is it true? Is it worth it?

Do we interact and participate with others in a respectful way?  Do we seek out the voices we know are in contrast to our own?  Are we willing to argue from our weak points rather than dominate from our strengths?

Do people love our ministry the way we are leading it?  How are we looking for ways for them to participate, understand it better, and share with others?

Are the stakeholders- lay leaders, colleagues, people who don't know as much as us are aren't as good at it or theologically grounded as us allowed to run stuff?