The Peacemakers Genesis

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Part 1-Tilling the Soil: Charleston Church Shooting & the Summer of the Confederate Flag

By Peace JV | September 22, 2018

Series: How Peacemakers Began Part 1-Tilling the Soil: Charleston Church Shooting & the Summer of the Confederate Flag So much has happened in the last three plus years that perhaps many have forgotten that summer. I will never forget that summer. The summer that a young, white-supremacist gunman gunned down nine African-American Christians during a …

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Part 2-Planting the Seeds: Real Talk at the Coffee Shop, Race, Confederacy and the South

By Peace JV | December 27, 2018

Series: How Peacemakers Began Part 2-Planting the Seeds: Real Talk at the Coffee Shop, Race, Confederacy and the South It was on a Monday night, July 6, 2015, when the seeds were sown that would eventually grow into what became the Peacemakers Discussion Group. That night, 13 Christian people, African-American, Caucasian, and Hispanic gathered around …

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Part 3–Watering the Seeds: The Love Your Neighbor March

By Peace JV | January 19, 2019

Series: How Peacemakers Began Part 3–Watering the Seeds: The Love Your Neighbor March Throughout the summer and fall of 2015, as the discussions on race, the Confederacy, and the South continued at the coffee shop, I did much soul searching, self-examination, as I grew more uncomfortable with my own silence in the face of the …

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Part 4—Germination: Winter of Conviction and Silence

By Peace JV | January 20, 2019

Series: How Peacemakers Began Part 4—Germination: Winter of Conviction and Silence So, as the summer and fall of 2015 and the discussions about race at the coffee shop wound down and the Love Your Neighbor March concluded, I entered the late fall and winter months determine to somehow, learn to speak up to other Christians …

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Part 5—Birth: The Summer of Blood and Birth of Peacemakers Discussion Group

By Peace JV | March 3, 2019

Series: How Peacemakers Began July 5, 2016, rolled around. It was a year to the day that I attended the first discussion of “Race, Confederacy, and the South” that Reverend Fletcher had held at the coffee shop. This was the same day that Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was killed at almost point-blank range …

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