"ORGANIZING FOR PEACE" GATHERING HELPS LAY GROUNDWORK
FOR A NONVIOLENT MOVEMENT

North Manchester, IN – The weekend of March 15-17, 2002, over 110 members and friends of the Church of the Brethren, including college students from 8 universities, gathered in northern Indiana for a weekend of "Organizing for Peace." The gathering, co-sponsored by the Maryland-based Church of the Brethren-affiliated organization On Earth Peace and the Manchester College Peace Studies Institute (North Manchester, IN), was planned to motivate, connect, and inspire peacemakers to mobilize and act against the current War on Terrorism.

On Earth Peace staff-person Kim Stuckey said, "A basic goal for the weekend was to bring together peacemakers who might be feeling isolated in these times. We wanted people to find community support for their feelings and ideas of opposition to the war. We hope this support can give them the strength to act in their home communities."

Large and small group sessions, workshops, and worship and singing moved participants from analysis to vision to strategy. In a series of sessions, participants analyzed the signs of the times and explored methods for strengthening the forces of liberation and reducing the effect of forces of oppression and repression, explored allies for building a movement, and finally drafted two-year time-lines for peace action in their own work.

The inter-generational gathering included college students from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and California and church people from as far away as Virginia and Colorado. Topics for organized workshops included music as a tool for social change, war tax resistance, organizing local congregations or college campuses for action, and anti-racist perspectives. Saturday's lunch hour was dedicated to ‘guerilla workshops' where participants were invited to lead their own discussions about issues of interest to them– including a recent trip to Iraq, pastors doing peacemaking, how to hang banners from highway overpasses, and more.

The conference planners incorporated arts into the gathering through an art area where participants sculpted and painted, art displays, and brief "creative encounters" at the beginning of sessions where anyone could volunteer to read a poem, tell a story, sing, play fiddle. Saturday night featured a concert by social justice folk singers Charlie King and Karen Brandow. "We are trying to build the culture for an active nonviolence movement," said On Earth Peace staffmember Matt Guynn. "That means welcoming the senses, the body, the voice – calling on poets and artists and musicians and opening space for the Spirit to move."

On Sunday morning, an energetic and moving worship service sent participants back home with feelings of hope and energy. Washington, DC resident Shelly Ungemach said, "The ball has started rolling in the development of a Brethren and friends peace and justice movement. This weekend was a good reminder that there's work to be done and that we as people of faith need to get going!"

On Earth Peace, located in New Windsor, MD, is a peace education organization in the Church of the Brethren. Part of On Earth Peace's mission is to "empower people to discern the things that make for peace."