Trees and tweets for World Sunday for Peace
As the sun rises on Sunday 22 May Christians and churches across the world are being encouraged by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to celebrate God’s peace in their worship services, to hold a Peace Sunday dawn vigil, to plant a tree as an act of peace or to use social media to share prayers for peace with Christians around the world.
"Each tree will become the lasting symbol of our united efforts to bring the peace of Christ to our suffering world" says the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the WCC general secretary. "We hope that people will feel inspired to use social media like Twitter or Facebook to share pictures, peace prayers and hopes for a just peace in their own language."
The World Sunday for Peace is part of the WCC's International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) which will take place 17 -25 May in Kingston, Jamaica and marks the culmination of the “Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches Seeking Reconciliation and Peace”.
Over a thousand people from around the world will be meeting in Kingston to celebrate the promise of a just peace. Churches in the Caribbean have prepared a prayer for peace for churches throughout the world to use on the Sunday for Peace.
Hymns, texts and ideas that congregations can use to prepare for their celebration of the peace Sunday are available at www.overcomingviolence.org/sunday
"It can be quite a challenge to write a prayer in just 140 keystrokes on Twitter, but such small steps are part of our journey to building a just peace," said Tveit. "It's our hope that the worldwide prayer for peace on 22 May will help build bridges of just peace."
The Ontmoetingskerk in Ijsselstein in the Netherlands has just become the WCC's 1000th follower on Twitter.
As the sun rises over the world on 22 May, keep the WCC updated about how your church is praying and acting for peace with justice, write your prayers for peace and share photos of your vigil and tree planting:
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Website of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation:
www.overcomingviolence.org
Prayer for peace from the Caribbean (available in more than 20 languages)
Twitter in worship: a service for just peace using Twitter
