What is Peace Church?

Peace church is a way of thinking and understanding; it is a particular focus and response to being a Christian community of faith. It is built upon the complete centrality of Jesus as the incarnation of God’s character and thus the source of all true values.

One of the most significant themes in the Bible is encapsulated in a simple Hebrew word: Shalom.

When translated into English, shalom normally becomes 'peace'. To western minds it so often reduced to simply tranquillity, or absence of war. But in a Hebrew mind it is so much greater than that: peace, tranquility, safety, non-violence, well-being, welfare, health, contentment, success, comfort, wholeness and integrity - all this is shalom. Little wonder that "Shalom aleikhem!" is a common greeting - peace be upon you!

A peace church is a community of believers that is wrestling with all that shalom means. It is a local church who are trying to be people utterly and primatirly motivated by these profound values and all of the values that connect implicitly alongside. One of the curious things about most local churches, denominational or independent, and most of the contemporary rethinking of church is that they're determined by their structure and practice. A peace church knows that structure and practice must always be organic and flexible. They must be seen simply to support and serve a particular group at a particular place or time; they must never be what give identity and definition. They must, themselves, always be shaped by the values and the vision that motivate peace church.

For further reading, we are working on the material for a book, called PeaceChurch - Post-Christendom Christian Communities of Faith.

Anabaptist Network Study Guide: Becoming a Peace Church
Of interest, the Anabaptist Network has an eBook available free online called 'Becoming a Peace Church'. Written by Alan and Eleanor Kreider, the study guide tries to engage with several important questions. What are the implications for a church that decides to take seriously its calling to be a peaceful community? How does this impact its worship, its relationships, the way it equips its members for life and work, the way it responds to global issues?

The study guide includes five short sessions and a large appendix that contains the following sections:

• Early Church Fathers on Peace
• Stories of 'God Making Peace'
• Excerpt from Walter Wink's Engaging the Powers
• Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back? by Joseph Liechty
• 'Peacemaking Imagination' Stories
• 'Peacemaking Worship' Resources
• The Just War criteria
• 'Action for Peace' Stories

You can download your own copy of the Becoming a Peace Church Study Guide here (PDF; 58pp; 249kb).

The approach to being a peace church that the study guide takes fits in the wider context of the Anabaptist peace church tradition, current in the Mennonite and Brüderhof communites especially. As such, it focuses particularly on peace as non-violence and absence of war. Whilst that perspective is vital and beautiful, we would argue that it doesn't embody the full scope of the shalom vision.