An update on the COB GVP written by Mandy Park:

I don’t know about you, but by the time February rolls around, I’m tired of winter. In Maryland, where I live, an internet meme resurfaces each year claiming our four seasons are Spring, Summer, Fall, and Grey. I sure feel that right now! Ironically, January and February are our coldest and snowiest months; I know this, but it still feels like spring ought to be just around the corner.

I’m feeling a bit like that right now in life. I’m tired of winter—of the grey—and it feels like I’m stuck there, spring just out of reach. Fortunately, while we may not be able to control either the weather or the seasons of life, we can determine what to do during the season we find ourselves in. For the past two years, the Church of the Brethren (COB) Gun Violence Prevention Action (GVP) Team has concentrated on launching a COB-focused GVP campaign, raising awareness, being spiritually attentive, and laying the foundations for a network of COB-wide GVP advocates. As we move into 2025, we’re focusing on the word effective in our purpose statement:

“The Church of the Brethren Gun Violence Prevention Action Team has formed to galvanize the Church of the Brethren to be faithful as an effective force for reducing gun violence in our neighborhoods and wherever it occurs.”

We want to ask ourselves, you, and your communities: what does it look like to be effective at reducing gun violence? At our February 8, 2025 quarterly organizing meeting, we shared our 2025 initiatives, which focus on effectiveness in gun violence reduction for the purpose of preparing ourselves, you, and your communities for future action.

You can read more about the initiatives here, but in brief, they are:

1. Safe Gun Storage Initiative

We are partnering with Be SMART, a campaign launched by Everytown for Gun Safety which promotes responsible gun ownership. It is an educational program designed to help people understand the importance of safe storage for reducing gun violence and encourage conversation about the topic. Our goal is that Church of the Brethren congregations will commit to responsible gun ownership through storing any individually owned guns safely and investing in their local communities by becoming a partner in promoting safe gun storage in their neighborhoods.

     2. Kingian Nonviolence Step One Initiatives

The first step when beginning any campaign or initiative is information gathering. This is critical to developing an effective strategy for change. Through the two possible paths of individual connection and collaborative dialogue, we want Church of the Brethren congregations to prepare for future action on gun violence prevention by building relationships in their community and building an analysis that will lay a foundation for future effective action.

     3. Strategic Thinking Initiative

Our work is one small slice of a greater long-term gun violence prevention movement in the U.S. In order to develop a long-term strategy, we need to understand the big picture and where we fit in it. We are calling all strategically minded people to participate in a short-term research project to answer relevant questions about GVP as an organizing movement. Our goal is to produce our own analysis of the larger gun violence prevention movement in the U.S. as the foundation for proposing a strategy and next action steps for the Church of the Brethren to become an effective force on Gun Violence Prevention.

You’ll be hearing more about these initiatives as time goes on. We’ll be producing and providing resources, information, and support, and we’d love to hear which of these three initiatives most interests you or your congregation.

We continue to produce a monthly newsletter with action ideas for your congregation and are actively planning for our activities at the 2025 Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in Greensboro, North Carolina. Email [email protected] if we’ll see you there, and if you’d be available and willing to help out in some way.

We’d also love to see you at our next quarterly organizing meeting, which is scheduled for Saturday, May 3rd at 1pm ET.  You can register here.

Meanwhile, all currently available resources, slides from previous quarterly meetings, and our newsletter archive can be found in our Google Drive Toolkit folder, accessible here.

Mandy Park is convenor of the Church of the Brethren Gun Violence Prevention Action Team. You can reach her at [email protected].