“Making peace,” “resolving conflict,” “building bridges” – whatever you want to call it – is by definition hard. It’s challenging and uncomfortable. There is no way around this. because if it wasn’t, then the conflict wouldn’t exist and the work wouldn’t need to be done. But evidence from psychologists, neuroscientists, professors, and religious leaders point to the fact that doing hard things is good.

A few questions that we keep getting have to do with the relationship between peacebuilding and Christian witness. Is peacebuilding supposed to lead to witness? Does Christian witness simply not matter in light of so much division and conflict? What is Christian witness? Is it mainly about expressing religious convictions through our words? Or is it about serving as a living example of one’s faith? Read on to see our answers.

At Peace Catalyst, we’re working to equip and mobilize Christians for collaborative peacebuilding across lines of difference. In light of today’s hyperdiversity, church decline, and polarization, the need for a holistic, healing-oriented framework at a popular level among local pastors and their congregations has never been greater. With a shalom-centered theological framework and PCI’s peacebuilding toolkits, congregations have the opportunity to both reconstruct their faith in ways that fit with their core faith priorities and values and to collaborate with their diverse neighbors on issues that affect all of society. 

In a world rife with conflict and division, peacebuilding is a felt need in our families, communities, and wider society. Traditional approaches to conflict resolution often focused on political strategies and the most visible leaders, but there’s a growing awareness that sustainable peace requires a more holistic approach that involves everyday people like you and me. One innovative approach that we are leaning into at Peace Catalyst is the idea of a “peacebuilding learning pilgrimage” that includes active local participation. This transformative experience combines groups of foreign and local participants who learn from local peacebuilding practitioners about challenges and successes in their peace work. By including and valuing the voices of local participants, this approach empowers local populations in conflict-affected zones like Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) while simultaneously creating a lasting impact on participants from foreign countries.

“Peacebuilding is not an elective that you can choose from your church’s course offerings; it is the essence of our calling as Christians and the motivator for all we do.” That feedback was one of many incredible responses we got from our last 6-week online small group: “Introduction to Christian Peacebuilding,” and we have another group coming up in September. Read what others are saying about it, and join us for the next one!

Last month, the Slovakia Missions Network invited me to lead two workshops to introduce peacebuilding and how it relates to God’s mission and how Christians understand the Good News and witness. Since so much of my work with Peace Catalyst is to help Christians catch a vision for God’s shalom vision and peacebuilding mission, I was very excited to see how these ideas might connect more broadly with others in Eastern Europe.

How do we kindle the compassionate desire to love and serve our neighbors, while also learning that loving them means transformig the underlying conditions and conflicts causing harm? Learn about Peace Catalyst’s three-fold approach to community peacebuilding.

Although it’s best to train for peacebuilding before conflict arrives, conflicts are already present in our personal lives, churches, and society. The time to begin training for peacebuilding is now. It’s time to get started centering peace-oriented theology and peacebuilding skills training in our churches and Christian formation so that we can learn to partner as peacebuilders to bless and heal our communities.

To honor Rick’s legacy, to further his vision, and to raise up more peacebuilders like him, Peace Catalyst has established the Rick Love Peace Awards and is proud to present the very first recipients. These prestigious awards honor those who creatively cross divides to build peace, exhibiting the same character and courage displayed by Rick.