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Preamble
We affirm that God calls us to be peacemakers in a world of brokenness, conflict and war, and that God calls us to seek and work constantly toward a Just Peace --- God's shalom. We understand Just Peace to be the presence and interrelation of friendship, justice and common security from violence.
*God's shalom has been manifest since the beginning of history, for through creation God shows his desire to sustain the world and not destroy it.
*God creates and calls us into a covenant of peace, God's gift of friendship. When God's abiding presence is embraced, human well-being results, or shalom.
*Just Peace is grounded in the reconciling activity of Jesus Christ. Human sin is the rejection of the covenant of friendship with God and one another and the creation and perpetuation of structures of evil. Through God's own suffering love in the cross, the power of these structures has been broken and the possibility for relationship restored.
*God sends the Holy Spirit to continue the struggle to overcome the powers ranged against human bonding.
*The Church is a community of reconciliation and is a continuation of Christ's ministry of healing and forgiveness, made manifest to those who are in need. The Church is thus a real countervailing power to those forces which divide, which perpetuate human enmity and injustice, which destroy.
* The hope of the world is shalom, a vision which pulls all creation toward a time when weapons are swept off the Earth and all creatures lie down together without fear, where all dwell secure from want. The Church offers this conviction to the world: peace is possible.
*As Christians we are called to be peace makers whenever we encounter brokenness, pain, conflict or injustice which occurs in a variety of contexts --- in ourselves,our families, our congregations, our communities, our nation and in the international community.
In response to God's Covenant, we , the members of Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ do affirm and openly declare this congregation to be a Just Peace Congregation within the United Church of Christ. We commit ourselves to continue the current witness of this congregation for a Just Peace and commit ourselves to act in new ways in response to God's call to do peacemaking.
We commit ourselves to the goal of being a community which is:
*A community of hope, believing a Just peace is possible, working toward this end, and communicating to the larger world the excitement and possibility of a Just Peace.
*A community which enables and equips its members and others to grow as peacemakers in their families, in the congregation, in the community , in the nation and the world.
*A community of worship and celebration, centering its identity in justice and peacemaking and the Good News of peace which is Jesus Christ.
*A community of biblical and theological reflection, studying the Scriptures, the Christian story, and the working of the Spirit in the struggle against injustice and oppression.
*A community of spiritual nurture and support, loving one another and giving one another strength in the struggle for a Just Peace.
*A community of honest and open conflict, a zone of Freedom where differences may be expressed, explored, and worked through in mutual understanding and growth.
*A community of financial support, developing programs and institutions for a Just Peace.
* A community of solidarity with the poor, seeking to be present in places of oppression, poverty and violence, and standing with the oppressed in the struggle to resist and change this evil.
*A community of loyalty to God and to the whole human community over any nation or rival idolatry.
*A community without enemies, willing to risk and be vulnerable, willing to take surprising initiatives to transform situations of enmity.
*A community of repentance, confessing its own guilt and involvement in structural injustice and violence, ready to acknowledge its entanglement in evil, seeking to turn toward new life.
*A community of resistance, standing against social structures comfortable with violence and injustice.
*A community of sacrifice and commitment, ready to go the extra mile, and then another mile, in the search for justice and peace.
*A community of political and social engagement, in regular dialogue with the political order, participating in peace and justice advocacy networks, witnessing to a Just peace in the community, in the nation and in the world.