Global challenges like toxic polarization, ongoing violence and war, and climate change are dramatically straining our collective capacity to work together to meet everyone’s needs. Peacebuilding is not just for a few of us; peacebuilding insights and skills are needed to address the everyday challenges we face in our homes and communities, and we need them to work together to address wider societal challenges. Each gift to Peace Catalyst as an organization and to a specific peacebuilder or project is an investment to help shift the culture of the Church to prioritize God’s vision of holistic, just peace. 

Peace Catalyst International unreservedly calls for a ceasefire in Palestine and Israel, the return of all hostages, secure humanitarian corridors, and an end to the widespread killing and destruction in Gaza.

I am guessing there is a person in your surroundings with whom you do not agree and share the same values. If you are unable to speak to that person, I invite you to imagine walking in their shoes. Imagine spending one day as that person. Think about their life, their struggle, their way of seeing the world. What makes that person unavailable to you? And what makes them relatable?

REGISTRATION IS OPEN for individuals and small groups to come to Bosnia & Herzegovina on our Spring 2024 Catalyze Peacebuilding Pilgrimage. 

Together with our good friend and colleague Orhan Hadžagić, we’re hosting our first 6-week workshop series in September and October on conflict transformation. Learn more about it, and contact us to bring the workshops to your community.

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!

For the past 10 years I developed an interest in studying trauma. I must admit that my interest in the topic started from purely selfish reasons. I wanted to investigate and try to explain to myself the events that took place in my past. And try to understand why I jump and scream every time there is a sudden loud noise, thinking who is shooting, from what direction, and is my life under threat? Slowly, this interest grew to a much larger scale. I took on the ambitious task of trying and understand how trauma travels through generations. And what consequences it leaves behind.