On Earth Peace - An agency rooted in the Church of the Brethren

On Earth Peace is recruiting now for a seven-month leadership training effort, Salt and Light intended to equip at least three new local faith communities to use proactive nonviolence to address social justice problems in their communities. Will you join us?

Salt and Light, which kicks off in October 2010, is a leadership development program through which On Earth Peace will support a small cohort with the skills and spiritual preparation to mobilize their community on an underlying issue. Salt and Light participants will work together to learn the craft of nonviolence, while developing their own local initiative.

"Nonviolence" is not just "no violence." It's a positive and proactive force that brings people together to focus on solving problems in the community. Here’s an example: Churches and community groups are often great at providing food and clothing for the poor and needy in their communities, but different mobilizing and organizing skills and many new allies are needed to end the underlying poverty that gives rise to the need for food pantries and community clothes closets in the first place. Salt and Light provides the foundations, skill, and spiritual preparation to take community leadership to the next level.

"River's Gonna Rise Up" - the 2010 IDPP Campaign Video

This is the official video for the On Earth Peace 2010 campaign for the International Day of Prayer for Peace. The video was produced by Kay Guyer, a freshman at Manchester College, Manchester, IN, with original music composed by composer-songwriter Shawn Kirchner, and sung by Shawn Kirchner and Ryan Harrison.

Please feel free to download the video or to use it in public gatherings as you wish. This video is our gift to you.

IDPP 2010 Campaign: "A Future and a Hope"

In the last few years, hundreds of congregations and community groups have connected with On Earth Peace to pray for peace in their communities and our world on September 21. We are excited about the 2010 campaign, which kicked off officially on May 15.

On Earth Peace’s scriptural focus for 2010-2011 comes from Jeremiah 29 (4-7, 10-11), NKJV:

4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. 7And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace. 10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah speaks to the Jewish people in exile, with words of hope and encouragement for a community that feels bereft in Babylon. Although many readers of this blog are not in literal exile, feeling bereft is not out of order for anyone rooted in God’s call for radical love and obedience. We, too, are in exile from God’s realm of grace, justice, peace—from God’s intended wholeness for humanity. Where in the world are we?

"River's Gonna Rise Up" - the 2010 IDPP Campaign Video

IDPP 2010 Campaign: "A Future and a Hope"

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