Peace and Global Witness Special Offering

You can contribute now toward the Peace and Global Witness Special Offering. GIVE HERE (choose Peace and Global Witness from the drop down ‘fund’ options) or deliver your donations to the church office.

Building God’s Household of Peace, Together

Peacemaking is active not passive, doing not waiting.

Let’s let that sink in for a moment: peacemaking is active, not passive; doing, not waiting.

And this is A Season of Peace when we, the church together, are focused on seeking peace and reconciliation. Together we are building God’s house of peace where all are welcome, where all can find compassion, peace and justice.

We are the peacemakers.

Here in our community, we are working to eliminate racism. Our work is supported by your gifts to the Peace & Global Witness Offering. The portion of the offering that we retain will go to the Tywanza Sanders Legacy Foundation. These gifts also unite us with Presbyterian peacemakers across the country and the world who are also active, not passive; who are doing, not waiting.

In Baltimore, Maryland, the Hunting Ridge Presbyterian Church used their share of the offering to promote anti-violence programs in their schools.

The Central Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio, used their share to send a delegate to the World Presbyterian Peace Fellowship in Colombia to participate in conversations about the progress of the peace accords in areas of the nation wracked by revolution.

The Presbytery of the Pacific supports efforts to bring about change for low-wage workers and other vulnerable community members in the Los Angeles area.

Our gifts to the Peace & Global Witness Offering have also been combined with others to help end the forced inscription of child soldiers, to end gender-based violence and violence against women, to seek peace through nuclear disarmament, to end hunger and promote peacemaking in places like Madagascar and Rwanda.

During this season of peace, we have heard stories about Presbyterians working together to support sustainable food programs in war-torn parts of Cameroon. We’ve heard about the establishment of a new worshiping community in a Washington prison and a program to provide education to prevent STDs and HIV/AIDS in one of the worst-struck regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

With our gifts we are part of all these efforts, whether they are right here in Charleston or in places we’ve never seen and maybe never will. But these are all places that have one thing in common —the need for freedom and dignity that Christ wants for us all. Let us offer the peace of Christ at all times, in all ways.

We are the peacemakers.

We are the church, together. We are peacemakers, together. We are the builders of God’s household of peace. Together. And when, together, we all do a little, it adds up to a lot. 

Let us pray~

Prince of peace, make us active in reconciliation as we seek to build your house. May your spirit join these gifts that all might be instruments of your peace. Amen. 

PEACE & GLOBAL WITNESS OFFERING

Special Offering

The Peace & Global Witness Offering encourages the church to cast off anxiety and fear, discord and division, and embrace our reconciling God's mission to those around the corner and around the world.

Please give generously toward this special offering on Sunday or online (include description: Peace). This special offering will be taken up in the service on Sunday, October 6, 2019.

25% of the offering stays in this congregation to use in a local reconciliation program, this year to the Tywanza Sanders Legacy Foundation for college scholarships. These are awarded in part by the applicant's commitment to use his or her education "in improving race relations and dissolving racial barriers".

25% is used in our presbytery. For example, in January a group will travel to Allendale for a day of service in a Headstart program.

50% supports the work for peace and reconciliation being done by Presbyterians across the globe. Mission Co-workers, like our own Leisa Wagstaff, are working with peacemakers in countries torn by war. Her recent newsletter told of the work with rehabilitating former child soldiers.

Each year, the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations facilitates PC(USA) involvement in the UN Commission on the Status of Women, helping shape global standards on the empowerment of women, working to prevent gender-based violence.

Please give generously to the offering. "When we all give a little, it adds up to a lot."

PEACE & GLOBAL WITNESS OFFERING

A Special Invitation

Most of us don’t get any mail except for what? Bills and junk. But once in a while, now and then, a pretty envelope, perhaps hand-addressed and with something nice inside, is nestled among the coupons and ads and utility bills.

An invitation.

It’s something different and it feels good. It feels good to be invited.

Sometimes the church talks about the work we do as an obligation or a duty. We start thinking about the sign-up sheets and the time requirement, the money and ... But try to remember ‘invitation’ instead. Every time we are asked to give of ourselves, our time, our talent and our treasure, it helps to think of it as an invitation to imagine and be a part of God’s reign on earth. And on World Communion Sunday, We can think of no more appropriate word than ‘invitation.’ Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, invites us to the table. And not just us, but Christ invites, and we open doors to believers from all over the world, and we even profess that believers from every time and place join us. At this table we proclaim that Christ joins us into one body despite our differences. Christ invites and our doors open to the broken, the hurting and the survivors of violence—those who suffer, as he suffered, to be nourished by his compassion. Christ invites, and our doors open to all those who work for reconciliation and advocate for God’s justice, which makes for peace.

Christ invites, and we also offer ourselves to the pursuit to end violence and bring about reconciliation through the Peace and Global Witness Offering. Through our gifts, we offer a healing hand to women experiencing abuse, here in this country and in places like Guatemala, even as we seek to remedy the structures that create their vulnerability.

Our giving offers a word of peace to those incarcerated here and those crushed by civil war in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our offering draws together those who were once at war, creating opportunities for veterans from this land to return to Iraq and build relationships that offer a start to healing and understanding. Leisa Wagstaff, the mission co-worker we support in South Sudan, is working to facilitate reconciliation there. And this offering will be shared with a local foundation for reconciliation with the 25% that we retain in our congregation.

It is one of the ways we RSVP ‘yes’ to Christ’s invitation and offer, as the words in 2nd Thessalonians say, ‘peace, at all times, in all ways.’ At Christ’s table, and in these gifts, we are invited to believe those words. But for peace to truly be offered ‘at all times, in all ways’ we will start at THIS time and in THESE ways. If we all do a little, it adds up to a lot.