This
year’s Presbyterian Peacemaking Offering takes its theme,
“Swords into Plowshares: Living the Ways of Peace,”
from Isaiah. The Peacemaking Program invites individuals, families,
congregations, presbyteries, and synods to explore ways we can
live into God’s vision of peace as witnessed in Scripture.
How do we open ourselves to allow God to teach us God’s
ways so that we can walk those pathways? Does God really mean
war will be so unnecessary there will be no reason to make and
stockpile weapons—that we can use our energy, ingenuity,
and resources to do something like feed the people of the earth?
How do we respond to God’s vision of transforming weapons
to implements used for feeding people in our communities, our
nation, our world?
The Peacemaking Offering is received on World Communion Sunday,
which this year falls on October 1. An ecumenical celebration
started by Presbyterians in the 1930s, World Communion Sunday
affirms the power of the Lord’s Supper to unite the church
of Jesus Christ. It
is an appropriate day for Christians around the world to remember
Isaiah’s description of the reign of peace on earth and
to recommit ourselves to God’s peace.
Twenty-five percent of the Peacemaking Offering stays with
congregations to work for peace in their own communities. Synods
receive twenty-five percent; the remaining fifty percent goes
to the General Assembly’s Presbyterian Peacemaking Program
to provide resources for the whole church and support the myriad
peacemaking efforts of the PC(USA).
A Peacemaking Offering packet is sent to every PC(USA) congregation.
It contains bulletin inserts, minutes for mission, suggestions
for peacemaking activities within congregations, coin boxes,
worship resources for World Communion Sunday, activities for
children, a poster, and, new this year, place mats. Also included
is a new adult Bible study by Rebecca Gaudino that focuses on
Isaiah, The Shalom of God in the Midst of Empire. These and
other resources are available on the Peacemaking Web
site.
The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program is celebrating its 25th
anniversary this year. The importance of continuing the work
of peacemaking was reaffirmed by the General Assembly Council
in February when it adopted the 2007–2008 Mission Work
Plan, which has as one of its eight objectives to “encourage
presbyteries and congregations to seek nonviolent solutions
to conflict in their communities and around the world.”
As we face another year of destruction and hatred in places
around the world, may we allow God to teach us the ways of nonviolence
and trust that God’s vision for all the world’s
nations, including our own, can become reality. |
