Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

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Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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Olive Branch Newsletter For May, 2002

Peace With Justice

--Reproduced from the April 1998 issue of Interpreter

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." –Matthew 5:9

Peace with Justice Sunday will be on May 26th

Keeping the Peace Covenant

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. (Ezekiel 37:26)

The United Methodist Church's Peace with Justice Program is an expression of this ancient Hebrew understanding of shalom, or peace; but it goes beyond the traditional understanding of peace as being the absence of hostility or war.

Writing in In Defense of Creation, the United Methodist Council of Bishops declared shalom to be positive peace, harmony, wholeness, health and well-being in all human relationships. All of creation is interrelated.

According to this biblical understanding, if any person is denied shalom, all of God's children are diminished.

The 1996 General Conference took the 12-year-old Peace with Justice church wide emphasis and readopted it as a special program of The United Methodist Church, assigning it to the General Board of Church and Society.

Funding for the program comes through the annual Peace with Justice Special Sunday Offering. Peace with Justice Sunday 1999 is May 30 (or any Sunday chosen by your church).

Your offerings on Peace with Justice Sunday and your support throughout the year to ministries of peace making and justice witness in the world help promote our understanding that where hostility, hunger, homelessness, inadequate health care, environmental destruction or other oppression and injustice exist, there is no shalom.

United Methodists in congregations around the United States are studying God's Word, praying for guidance and courage and acting out of our longing for God's intention on earth: shalom.

Funds received from the annual Peace with Justice offering are split equally between the annual conference and church wide initiatives, including a denomination wide network of faithful, caring people who devote their lives to this vital ministry.

Peace with Justice Covenant Congregations have sprung up around the country in churches that commit themselves to building a global community. They work toward a faithful, just, disarmed and secure world in response to God's demand.

Peace with Justice Coordinators are at work in every annual conference in the United States. These Coordinators serve as the contact between districts and local churches, and the Peace with Justice Program office. The program also includes Peace with Justice Educators, who are missionaries on home leave, assigned to an annual conference.

A quarterly newsletter, Peace with Justice, is produced and sent to advocates interested and engaged in peace and justice ministries.

The Peace with Justice Committee of the conference board of Church and Society decides where Peace with Justice funds will be used in the annual conference.

Peace with Justice funds have been used to:

support local emergency assistance programs such as homeless shelters and food pantries;

provide a hotel near a correctional facility for families of prisoners;

sponsor a conflict resolution program for young people;

support Christian witness events at nuclear test sites;

fund letter-writing campaigns or visits to senators or congressional representatives, urging them to provide more assistance for human needs;

support work trips for Peace with justice ministries.

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