Peacemaking:

A Community Workbook

Anabaptists believe that peace and peacemaking is at the heart of the gospel. The good news of Jesus is that God’s resurrecting power is present here and now, and his resurrecting power frees us from the death-logic of violence. We can live without violence, free from the burden of self-preservation at the expense of others, because in his death and resurrection Jesus publicly exposed the lie of violence disarming its power. Violence does not produce the safety and security it promises. Violence – subjugation and control through coercion – never brings life; it always brings death.

There are six sections to this workbook, and each combines a small essay and some questions for discussion. Each has a related online video(s) to accompany the lesson (see link to the left). The essay portion is not written to be an exhaustive thesis on each topic but instead provide a starting point that connects some of the assumed framework of our local church and geographical context with the problems we face in being people that imitate Jesus.

The six sections are briefly summarized:

• Conflict, peacemaking and humble listening
• Telling the truth about violence
• Protest and getting in the way
• Imagining an alternative community
• Peace-making as place-making
• Peacemaking in your home