A few weeks ago I released a “Bishop’s Call to Action: A Response to Rising Teen Violence” calling for our local churches to look at ways in which they can become a voice of hope and a place of peace within our troubled communities. It has been encouraging to learn that a number of pastors and congregations have heard this challenge and are thinking critically about their witness.

This summer’s constant reports of shooting and death in our communities can have the effect of desensitizing us to the reality of hate and hurt, driving us deeper into our own places of comfort and security, or helping to spur us to respond. I pray that churches across the Northern Illinois area will be communities of response.

Our responses to the immediate needs are essential. Now is the time for our congregations to be in dialogue; discerning ways in which we might offer safe space for children and teens, non-violent models for conflict resolution, alternative channels for anger. As individuals and as churches we must witness to the need for gun control, model peaceful resolution to our own conflicts, offer support for struggling and single parent families, extend a word of grace, resourcing and encouraging to those caught up in alcohol and drug abuse, become a place of welcome and meaningful engagement for ex-offenders.

Alongside this call to action, we also need to dive more deeply into the words of scripture, the example of Christ witness and then look more broadly at the patterns of our society and the ways of the world today.

The words of Isaiah ring out as an elusive dream in a violent world. “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” Isaiah 2: 4 The images of Jesus parables concerning forgiveness of our enemies, truing the other cheek, loving our neighbor have become unrealistic platitudes in a hate filled, violence driven society.

We are rightfully distraught by the violence breaking out on the streets of our communities, the record number of deaths from shoots, the escalating fear of teenagers for their safety as they travel to and from school this fall. Yet if we do not step back and see the parallels in how we solve our problems as adults, of how we solve our international problems through threat and warfare, modeling a behavior of aggression, we will never gain ground on the streets of our own communities and in the hearts of our own children.

In August the Soviet Union aggressively moved across their boarders into Georgia. The Cease Fire between North and South Korea remains the longest standing cease fire of an unresolved war in our history. Recent suicide bombing of religious pilgrims traveling to holy sites in Iraq reminds us that internal conflicts of faith and sect and political conflicts of territories and resources rage all at once.

It is difficult for any of us to understand the many dynamics that go into these highly charged political situations. Yet time and again as the civilized world chooses to resolve their differences through aggression and violence we are modeling for our youth and our children, telling them that violence is the way to resolution.

Please spend some time this fall examining the ways in which your church community can bring hope and refuge to our children and youth around issues of their safety in the streets. But also give time to grounding yourself in the peace of Christ and the call to care for our brothers and sisters as God’s children. Pray for the peace of our world. Learn about the conflicts in other regions. Urge our political leaders to look for just resolutions and peaceful ways of settling our differences so we can model new ways of being community for this generation and generations to come.