“Icon.” “Visionary.” “Prophet.” “Role model.”
These are some of the terms Indigenous Anglican leaders used in remembering Canon Laverne Jacobs, a trailblazing leader of Indigenous ministries in both the Anglican and United churches who died peacefully on Dec. 11 at the age of 83.
A member of Walpole Island First Nation, Jacobs served as native ministries coordinator for the Anglican Church of Canada and later as the United Church of Canada’s first native ministries coordinator. One of 21 signatories of the 1994 Covenant in which Indigenous Anglicans called for a self-determining community within the Anglican Church of Canada, Jacobs played a leading role in national gatherings that compelled the church to grapple with its role in the residential school system, culminating in the 1993 apology by then-primate Archbishop Michael Peers for abuses committed in the residential schools.
“He was an icon,” National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop Chris Harper said of Jacobs. “He was there at the very beginning just to see the Indigenous ministries from its liftoff and from its very onset and concept … He was that landmark that everybody saw.”
Jacobs, Harper said, offered both a vision for Indigenous ministries and “the push to keep going—to keep everyone motivated that this can be done, especially through such a conflicted time of going through the residential school experience, and even leading up to the apology. He was one of those way signs that basically led everybody to that moment.”
Canon Murray Still, advisory elder to the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP) first met Jacobs in the early 1990s. He said the latter would be “remembered as a visionary and a bit of a prophet” in being able to hear and recognize, from a national gathering of Indigenous Anglicans, a shaping vision of self-determination within the Anglican Church of Canada—and looking to bring that vision into reality, despite occasional resistance from the wider church.
“Laverne was able to speak the truth in love,” Still said. “Anywhere he went, he was that gentle hand on a plough … steering it, taking us in a good way, a good direction.”
Baptized and raised in the United Church, Jacobs was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1975. He served in parish ministry and as a regional dean in the diocese of Huron. From 1987 to 1996, he served at the national church office in Toronto—first as a staff person for the Council on Native Ministries, predecessor to ACIP, then as native ministries coordinator.
During this time, Jacobs helped organize the earliest gatherings of Indigenous Anglicans from across Canada in what was then called the National Native Convocation, later known as Sacred Circle. The first gathering of Sacred Circle in 1988 at Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask. laid bare the struggles against poverty, violence, drugs and suicide on reserves and set the stage for the next Sacred Circle in Minaki, Ont. in 1993.
Recalling how Jacobs helped steer the 1993 gathering, Still said, “His leadership was quite obvious. He had a keen sense of what was trying to be accomplished.” When a documentary about the residential schools sparked conversation among participants, Still said, “people started to talk about their experience as residential school survivors and people began to get upset, of course, because it was opening up some wounds.” Jacobs recognized how important it was for attendants to share their experiences and shifted the agenda. “Laverne realized quite quickly that the circle had been broken. He came back, apologized for that, and that’s what started three solid days of sharing from survivors,” Still said.
At the end of those three days, Peers offered his historic apology on behalf of the church for harm caused in the residential schools.
Similarly, Still said, Jacobs played a guiding role at the 1994 Sacred Circle in Winnipeg, helping participants discern their next steps in a process that ultimately produced the Covenant, a foundational document for Sacred Circle.
In 1996, Jacobs returned to parish ministry in both Anglican and United churches in Walpole Island First Nation, located within the Anglican diocese of Huron. In 2002, he began work as the native ministries co-ordinator at the national office of the United Church of Canada.
Yet Jacobs remained active in Anglican circles. From 2014 to 2019 he served as a member of the Primate’s Commission on Discovery, Reconciliation and Justice. Convened by then-primate Archbishop Fred Hiltz, the commission was tasked with putting into action a 2010 General Synod resolution to repudiate and renounce the Doctrine of Discovery, advance reconciliation, and align church principles with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 Calls to Action.
Bishop Riscylla Shaw, suffragan bishop for the diocese of Toronto, served with Jacobs on the primate’s commission.
“I would call him a role model, because he was very human and he acknowledged his humanity all the time,” Shaw said of Jacobs. “But he also worked for godliness, and to me he embodied that in a very healthful way. It wasn’t like I put him up on a pedestal, but that he had dignity—deep, ingrained faith that shone out as dignity … and he treated the rest of us like that … He had this way of recognizing the value of everybody who participated in the conversations.”
Jacobs, she said, “was such a kind, caring, wise person. He didn’t speak first. He thought first, and then he spoke in a way that felt like Jesus was in the room.”
Bishop of Huron Todd Townshend presided at Jacobs’ funeral service, which took place Dec. 17 at Walpole Island United Church.
“Laverne‘s ministry was hugely significant for us in the diocese of Huron,” Townshend told the Anglican Journal.
“At home on Walpole Island, he continued a great tradition of providing informed leadership for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Anglicans across Turtle Island. His pastoral and leadership gifts were in balance at all times and his love came with strong action. He had a God-given gift for bringing people together and for speaking the truth in love.
“In both the Anglican and United churches he persisted and provided fruitful ministry and accomplishment. In that fruit seeds were provided and planted for future reconciliation work. I am personally grateful for his strong, quiet guidance, and generous service to the very end.”
Jacobs is survived by his wife Lynn Anne, three adult children, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
