August 2022

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Prince of Peace!

We invite you and your congregation to observe Peace Sunday together with brothers and sisters in the global Anabaptist church family on 18 September 2022.

Accompanying this letter, we send worship resources you may use in celebrating Peace Sunday.

This year’s Peace Sunday is: “Being a new creation in the midst of external turmoil.”

Times of hardship, turmoil and conflict are precisely when opportunity arises to demonstrate what it means to be a new creation amid the old. This year’s Peace Sunday resources will explore the ways in which people throughout our communion give expression to God’s new creation during difficult circumstances.

Rationale for Peace Sunday

The UN General Assembly set 21 September as the permanent date for the International Day of Peace in 1981.

The resolution states that observing the International Day of Peace “strengthen[s] the ideals of peace and alleviat[es] tensions and causes of conflict.” It declares “...a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day.”

We know that we need this now more than ever before!

Following the recommendation of the 2003 Peace Council in Bulawayo, the 2006 Peace Commission in Pasadena chose the Sunday nearest to 21 September (International Day of Peace) as a Peace Sunday to be observed by Mennonite World Conference member churches.

Churches who already observe a different Sunday as Peace Sunday are encouraged to continue with their practice, and are invited to include the global church concerns in their prayers on the global Peace Sunday.

MWC would like to hear how you observed Peace Sunday. If you have stories or reports of activities and worship events in your congregations, please send them to photos@mwc-cmm.org so that we can share them with our global church community.

God’s blessings to you as you continue your work toward Christ’s peace!

Yours in Christ’s peace,

Andrew G. Suderman,
Secretary, Peace Commission
|AndrewSuderman@mwc-cmm.org