Season of Peace

About the 2018 Season of Peace

Welcome to the 2018 Season of Peace! This five-week pilgrimage is designed to deepen the pursuit of peace for congregations, small groups, families, and individuals. Through daily “Path of Peace” reflections, “Peace Cards” for children and families, Bible and book studies for adults, children’s curriculum, an intergenerational peace fair, and other downloadable resources, Presbyterians are invited to define and deepen their calling as peacemakers. This season is a time of encouragement, challenge, inspiration, and education. 

While these resources are designed to culminate in the Peace & Global Witness Offering, they are appropriate for any time of the year. This year’s theme returns to a text that the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program has used for a number of years to guide its work. It is the concluding hope of the second letter to the Thessalonians: “May the God of peace grant you peace at all times in all ways.” (2 Thessalonians 3:16) It is our hope that you will be enriched, renewed and enlivened in all the times and ways of your peacemaking and global witness.

Resources included in A Season of Peace:

Path of Peace Daily Reflections

The reflections for the 36 days of “A Season of Peace” come from a diverse and varied set of voices within our church and illustrate the many times and ways that we are offered, engage in and even challenged by peace. The reflections are organized weekly as follows:

Week 1 — September 2-8: Peace that Passes Understanding-Personal Testimonies
Week 2 — September 9-15: Partners in Peace-Interfaith Work for Peace and Justice
Week 3 — September 16-22: Go and See: Reflections from Travel Study Seminars
Week 4 — September 23-29: The Church and Its Witness- Responding to Human Trafficking
Week 5 — September 30-October 7: Peacemaking and Practice-Stories and Reflections on Building Bridges

You have the option of subscribing to these reflections for daily delivery into your inbox or printing the entire collection as a devotional resource. Many thanks to Patrick Heery for serving as editor of the 2018 Path of Peace Reflections and to the outstanding team of contributing writers.

Subscribe to daily reflections that will be delivered directly to your inbox September 2 – October 7. Choose Path of Peace under Advocacy and Social Justice.

Download the entire set of Path of Peace Reflections

Peace Fair 

The Peace Fair is a hands-on, multisensory, intergenerational event that offers peace and justice learning activities.

Peace Cards

There are 3 sets of 30 cards from which to choose.  The cards can be placed in a central location such as a kitchen table. Peace cards can be used anywhere and with anyone—at meals or family gatherings, during fellowship at church, as icebreakers for study groups, or for in-depth conversations on long bus rides with youth. Use one card per day during A Season of Peace and let the conversations lead to new perspectives and practices for making peace.

• Peace Cards — Third Edition
• Peace Cards  — Second Edition
• Peace Card — First Edition

Children’s Curriculum

Lessons from the Table is a five-session curriculum that focus on the communion table.  It can be used with a broadly-graded children’s group in a variety of contexts.

Adult Bible Study

The Things that Make for Peace is a five-week adult study focusing on the inner and outer paths to peace as foundational to faithful discipleship. Each session has a “dig deeper” section for study throughout the week.

Adult Book Study

Risking Peace is a five or six session companion to the book Five Risks Presbyterians Must Take for Peace by Christian Iosso, published in 2017 by Westminster John Knox Press. The guide helps participants explore reflect upon and apply the five peacemaking affirmations approved by the 222nd General Assembly in 2016.

Children’s Coloring Poster

This reproducible original artwork is based on Ephesians 2: 14-17 and features the text “Peace to those who are near and those who are far away.”  The wings of the dove have the word “peace” in 5 languages – Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, Korean and English.  Designed for the 2017 Season of Peace by the folks at Illustrated Children’s Ministry, the artwork can be downloadable in a variety of sizes – 8.5×11, 11×17, 24×36 and 36×48 (in color or black/white).    It can be used as individual coloring sheets or enlarged to poster-size for a group coloring project through the weeks of the Season of Peace.  You can have a local printer print the file onto poster or foam core board.  Then put it up in a community room, narthex or fellowship hall, supply plenty of great coloring pens and invite folks to add color to the poster each week during the Season of Peace. 

Intergenerational Peace Fair — The Peace Fair is an inter-generational event that may be held during A Season of Peace, as part of World Communion Sunday, or at another time during the year.  Eating together is an important component of the event, so be sure to plan for a meal.

Season of Peace logo— Graphic logo for the Season of Peace for use on websites, newsletters or bulletins.

September 11 Remembrance

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. – Luke 4:18–19

Jesus calls us to be peacemakers.

We see this every day as we experience our world’s need for Christ’s reconciling love, peace, and justice. We feel this as we long to know God’s peace in our hearts and relationships. The promise of Jesus “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9) is both a comfort and a challenge. It reminds us that the path of peace is something we both follow and forge.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus reads the Isaiah passage that would frame his en-fleshed life. It is here that he grounds his calling in the work of peace. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19).

In his identification with this ancient passage, Jesus declares what he sees his mission to be. This is peacemaking: preaching good news; proclaiming freedom and healing to those imprisoned; releasing those in oppression, proclaiming the time is now. It is both inspiring and daunting to recognize that each of us has been given that very same Holy Spirit, our own call entwined with Christ’s mission to be bearers of peace and justice. We know the world needs us to follow Christ as peacemakers so that we can all live and thrive in an unjust and conflict-ridden world. It is not an easy calling, but we embark on this pilgrimage together and with the presence and guidance of Jesus.

Distractions are everywhere, threatening to pull us to the margins of living an authentic peace-filled Christian life. Important issues, breaking news, and our ragged pursuit of a more meaningful spiritual life all distract us. We are reminded of this every time we power up our computers, turn on the television, or struggle to handle conflicts in our families and communities in a way that will not alienate them or us. And we certainly experience it as we negotiate our own inner worlds of chaos and longing.

The journey of peace is a pilgrimage of our whole selves: spirit and body; heart, feet, and mind. The pursuit of God’s peace is both an inner and outer journey where the well-being of one is held in the well-being of all. In order for us to walk farther along this road of peace-full living, we can and should engage both inner and outer aspects of faithful spiritual living. Doing so allows us to become more authentic and effective bearers of peace in our world.

Because of these reasons, we invite you into A Season of Peace that will engage your imagination and offer opportunities for you to live more fully into your calling as a peacemaker. It is for the curious and the jaded, the beginner and the experienced peace seeker. Spend an intentional “season” with Jesus, the peacemaker, and see if this might become your way of being authentically Christian in the world.

For over 30 years, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have been committed to pursuing a peaceful and just world. Peace seekers and advocates, those who work and pray for reconciliation and justice, have found their home in the Presbyterian peacemaking community.

In 1980, the 192nd General Assembly adopted Peacemaking: The Believers’ Calling, a document that has guided Presbyterian peace efforts. It is no less critical today. The document declares, among other things, that “the church is obedient to Christ when it nurtures and equips God’s people as peacemakers.”

Download the guide

The Peace Fair is a hands-on, multisensory, intergenerational event that will offer peace and justice learning activities. The Peace Fair may be held as a kickoff to A Season of Peace, as a focus for World Communion Sunday, or at another time during the year. Congregations might consider joining with neighboring congregations for this event as a way to build community and to embody the work of peacemaking. Participants will receive a Peace Passport which will guide them through art, media, music, food, and other activities to explore peace as a community. Learning and activity stations will be created for multiple types of learning:

• World Café Bible study
• Antibullying pledge: “We are One”
• Canned food tower build
• Prayer center
• Craft table
• Drama center
• Computer/social media station
• Cooperative games
• Guest speaker