May Mission Month is coming to an end, and in June we’ll begin a new theme, revisiting the question: what is Jesus’s vision for a loving and just world? We took time to explore where we could find that vision in scripture and now we are moving to look at how do we in practical ways live into Jesus’s vision for the world.

In June, we’ll explore how we deal with conflict—looking at underlying anger, past trauma, and how living in Jesus’s way can challenge violence in our world, especially family and partner violence.

Jesus is called the Prince of Peace and calls us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.  This approach to conflict is very different from the way of the world, where might makes right and the powerful dominate the vulnerable. Jesus invites us to be peacemakers—and that begins with how we face our own conflicts and how we encourage others to face theirs.

Some of what we will be addressing is, as late theologian Walter Wink calls, “the myth of redemptive violence.” Here is a one minute video that capture some of what Wink is getting at and it is good background knowledge we will build on in June.  Please join us as we try to become more like Jesus in how we make peace in our lives and work on transforming our traumas and conflict and reducing the violence in our world.