Circle of Peacemakers Festival

If we are anything as a network at Circle of Hope, we are doers of what Jesus commands of us. How do we do these commandments, though? And, how we can be proactive peacemakers at the micro and macro levels? We've been asking questions like these as the newly formed Circle of Peacemakers team, a group that came out of the now-defunct Shalom House. We tried to answer some of these questions at our first annual Circle of Peacemakers Festival that happened on Friday, September 19th.

In preparation for the festival, Circle of Peacemakers asked questions of those who were connected to us via social media. Then, while we ate soup and desserts, we split into groups to discuss the church’s response to issues of peacemaking. One of those questions was, “A well-known journalist, James Foley, was beheaded by ISIS in Iraq. What do you think is the right response from the government? From the church?” One respondent succinctly and poignantly responded that the government should apologize for proliferating the war that Foley was covering and that the Church ought to pray and find ways to be at risk with people like him.

The task of peacemaking is humbling and sobering. It was necessary to have the five music acts from around our network to provide inspiration and soul healing as we thought through the many burdens of the world in our festival. The music acts featured everything from soulful harmonies to singer-songwriter styles and a hip hop performance by Jared Selby who got the whole crowd to be his “producer” by asking them to provide the beat by clapping rhythmically and singing backing vocals for him.

Finally, Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach, director of the Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington told us about the often thankless job of working to influence lawmakers inside the beltway to make policies reflect a holistic Christian worldview. She reminded us that we need Sabbaths to continue working toward bringing the Kingdom to earth and not be too disappointed when it seems that our efforts are not effective enough. To quote Dr. King, as the Church we are neither masters nor servants of the State but rather the conscience of it and we must act accordingly. 

Our next quarterly meeting is Friday December 5 at 1125 S Broad Street. Bring yourself and your enthusiasm. See you there!

(By the way, Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and read our blog at www.circleofpeacemakers.com).

Reporting: Jerome Stafford