The 2022 Peace and Global Witness Offering & Season of Peace

The Presbyterian Church (USA) marks September as its Season of Peace, so we invite you to give special thought and prayers to peace. Some, like us, are blessed to enjoy it to the point of probably not giving it much thought, but many others throughout the United States and the world, wake each day to a world without such peace.

The Office of Presbyterian Mission invites you to subscribe to a four-week, daily e-mail pilgrimage called “The path of peace”. Go to https://pcusa.activehosted.com/f/178 Each morning you’ll wake to find a short devotion waiting in your inbox on a different topic of peace work, including climate change, non-violence, the intersection of race and poverty, and issues of immigration and migration.

The Season of Peace at the First Presbyterian Church

Throughout September, you’ll also find Peace Cards on the coffee hour tables and maybe in a few other surprise places. Each card offers a question for reflection, an action to be taken or a prayer to be spoken. Pick up one of these Peace Cards at least once during the month, and feel free to take it home with you.

The Choukoun

Your Mission and Justice Committee also invites you to visit the Narthex to see a series of photos and the story sent with them. They tell of one small moment in our church’s extended history of mission work in Haiti. You’ll see how our initials, FPCCS, are literally written inside a heart that sits at the center of a Choukoun we helped fund in Gwo-Jan, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. In Haitian culture, this Choukoun is intended as a place where people can come together, in peace, to discuss, teach, learn, and make community decisions. In a place beset by natural disasters, gang violence and intimidation, and racked by poverty, where work is scarce and a full-day’s pay only equates to about 1 U.S. dollar, this little Choukoun sits like a small island of peace. Perhaps a more hopeful metaphor would be to compare it to a seed that if tended, can grow like the mustard seed in one of Christ’s parables. -learn more-

How to Give

Each year, we retain 25% of the total Peace and Global Witness Offering to use as we see fit; this year we will be sending that money to our friends and neighbors who against stark odds, continue to do the good work of peace in Haiti. Special envelopes are in the pews, or you can simply add Peace Offering to the memo line on your check or online donation through the church’s website. We hope you will give generously, as you always do, but that you’ll also take some time to ponder peace, to give thanks for the peace we enjoy, and pray for its coming to all the world. Thank You.