This is a work in progress. We are exploring ways to live into the idea of being a people of peace. We hope to have an ongoing conversation as well as offer a statement outlining our commitments to peace. Below are some thoughts that we hope will stimulate the conversation.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Matthew 5:9

“The greatest single antidote to violence is conversation, speaking our fears, listening to the fears of others, and in that sharing of vulnerabilities discovering a genesis of hope.”

Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference

The peacemaker…is one who works for the coming of the kingdom in the name of Jesus. Christian peace is not merely the cessation of conflict, the reaching of an understanding among people that makes life more bearable… Christian peace flows from the cross. The work of peacemaking is accomplished by the shedding of one’s life-blood in imitation of Christ. Peace is the sign that the reign and primacy of God have been established in a soul, and this fullness of life is expensive and creative. This is why the text speaks of “making peace”, as a reality to be worked at as a fine artisan works to create an object of beauty and lasting value. These artisans of peace, whose “medium” is their own heart, and the hearts of [others], “shall be called the [children] of God” by God himself in the last day.

Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy Heart of The Word

As Christians, we must maintain day in and day out that peace is not something to be achieved by our power. Rather peace is a gift from God that comes only by our being a community formed around a crucified savior—a savior who teaches us how to be peaceful in a world in rebellion against its true Lord. God's peaceful kingdom, we learn, comes not by positing a common human morality, but by our faithfulness as a peaceful community that fears not our differences.

Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom

I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
Psalm 120:7

Mark those who are honest;

observe the upright;

    for there is a future for the peaceable.

Psalm 37:39