The Rev. David Dobler remembers when – early in his ministry in Alaska – presbytery meetings were fraught with multicultural complications.
“When we came to Alaska, we went to a presbytery where no one spoke all the languages, Dobler tells the new Presbytery of the Northwest Coast at its second stated meeting here. “Anyone could call for a language caucus, go off, figure it out, and then come back together,” he notes of the Tlinglit, Inupiat, Aleut, Tsimshian and other Native Alaska tribes whose members comprised the congregations of the Presbyteries of Yukon and Alaska when he started in ministry 30 years ago.