MPC is sensitive to ever-arising peace issues, whether surfacing in the congregation or in the greater society. Interested persons inside and outside the church work together to address issues in meaningful ways. A variety of programs over the years have included:
- Alternative Christmas bazaars
- World Communion Peacemaking offering.
- Peace marches
- Contributing money to peace causes
- Letter-writing campaigns related to gun control and war
- Workshops on
- Conflict resolution
- Violence in the media
- Middle East issues
- Capital punishment
- Racism
- Peacemaking in the family.
- Public peace concerts.
- Support for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture
The church is involved with Interfaith Peace Partners, a group that includes other churches, synagogues and mosques who host monthly prayer groups on the 22nd of each month of the year.
We have joined Women in Black Baltimore in annual Peace Path demonstrations for peace and then invited Betsy Cunningham, the group’s founder, to address a larger segment of the congregation.
We are in partnership with the Baltimore County Conflict Resolution Center (CRC). CRC helps to resolve interpersonal and community conflicts and offers mediation and other conflict resolution and restorative justice services and education. Space is made available at the church for their activities.
We support the Compassion Peace and Justice ministry of the Presbyterian Church USA, which helps Presbyterians respond to the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people, address injustice in all areas of life and advocate for peace solutions to conflict. This ministry also provides disaster relief, direct service, capacity building and development assistance to marginalized communities nationally and around the world.
Annual pot-luck meals are held in the homes of the congregation to discuss a book related to peace and justice. Last year these conversations focused on every-day civility matters under the concept of “Peace Begins With Me”..
The Peacemaking Action Group meets regularly to coordinate these various initiatives and to connect with other groups to urge them to integrate peace challenges into their programs and to receive from them their ideas further to enhance our programs
