Glendale Congregation Becomes First Adventist Peace Church
By AT News Team, Jan. 30, 2015: The Glendale City Seventh-day Adventist Church in Glendale, CA, is the first congregation to be certified as a “peace church” by the Adventist Peace Fellowship (APF). In order to join “the Adventist Peace Church network, churches must demonstrate a serious long-term commitment to certain core values and ongoing practical actions in their local communities,” states the APF website.
Todd Leonard, the congregation’s senior pastor, explained to Adventist Today why he values service and social values in ministry: “I really feel that bringing peace into communities…seems to be at the heart of the gospel. From what I read in the prophets, from looking at what Jesus did during his ministry and then carried on in the early church, there appears to be this work to include more people…in the blessings of God.”
In the past year, Glendale City Church has co-founded two nonprofit community service agencies—Caesura Youth Orchestra and Glendale Communitas Initiative. The music program provides instruments and instruction for elementary students who would otherwise have little access to musical training.
Communitas, which is a network of congregations from twelve different denominations, aims to reduce poverty in Glendale by 10 percent over the next five years. To accomplish this, Communitas is bringing together organizations in the religious, government, business and nonprofit sectors to coordinate service delivery for families at risk of becoming homeless. In addition to referrals for currently available services, Communitas will provide mentors “from other civic groups like Rotary or Glendale Young Professionals,” explains Leonard. “Each mentor,” he continues, “would meet with a family member an hour per week for an entire year.”
The Glendale congregation could continue to pursue these efforts locally without joining the APF peace church network; however, Leonard sees two reasons for connecting with APF. “One, we would love to have the collaboration and collegiality of networking with other churches who have the same mission and vision for their congregation. We can share ideas, share what’s working in our local context, find resources that would be beneficial for one another,” shared Leonard.
Secondly, Leonard hopes the network will “be something that more and more Adventist churches would want to be a part of, that they would reconnect with some of our heritage of not only preaching about the kingdom to come but actively working in society to make life better for the world we’re in and to work towards God’s purposes without violence.”
In order to support congregations in the network, APF director Ron Osborn told Adventist Today that the APF is prepared to “provide grants, as funding allows, to Adventist peace churches for projects they might be pursuing in their local communities. We are also committed to helping call attention to their activities through our blog and social media. The APF is really a platform and ‘network of networks’ that we hope can serve as a ‘force multiplier’ for congregations that might otherwise feel isolated and disconnected from Adventist community in their too-often unsupported work for peace and social justice.”
Four other congregations are currently in the peace church certification process—Advent Hope Church (NY), Anaheim Seventh-day Adventist Church (CA), Hollywood Adventist Church (CA), and The Well (TN). The APF website outlines nine steps toward certification, with the major actions including: (a) contacting APF to initiate the process, (b) passing a church board resolution expressing intent to join the network, (c) identifying a key area of action, (d) demonstrating commitment to the values of peace and justice over a one-year period, and (e) reporting the congregation’s sustained efforts to APF for evaluation.
On its website the Adventist Peace Fellowship describes itself as a non-profit lay organization that seeks to raise consciousness about the centrality of peacemaking to the beliefs and heritage of Seventh-day Adventists. The APF is not officially affiliated, funded, or controlled by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and does not speak on the Church’s behalf.
In 2003 Washington Adventist University history professor Douglas Morgan founded the APF with leadership support from Ron Osborn and approximately 20 Adventist scholars, administrators, pastors, and graduate students throughout the United States. In a 2011 interview with Adventist Today, Morgan shared about the early developments that led to the formation of the fellowship during the build up to the war in Iraq after the 9/11 terrorist attacks: “It started off as a discussion group there at CUC [now Washington Adventist University] and the surrounding community. We read John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus. I think in 2002 we decided to reach out to people who were on other campuses, the circles we were already familiar with.”[1] Morgan became the first director, and Osborn took over the role in 2011.
Originally, the organization’s focus was on peacemaking in the context of war and violence. Over time APF expanded its scope, and “efforts today include…care for creation, economic justice, freedom of conscience for persons both inside and outside of the Adventist community, racial and gender equality, and the nexus of health and human rights,” says the APF website.
In addition to online resources available via the APF website, the fellowship has produced two resources for distribution. “In 2005, the APF published its first book, The Peacemaking Remnant: Essays and Historical Documents, edited by Morgan, which has been used in college level courses as an introduction to the social ethics of Adventism with a particular focus on questions of violence and war,” states the APF website. In 2015 APF published its first calendar, which includes major figures in Adventist peace history along with quotes and notable dates.
Congregations interested in learning more about the peace church network can visit the APF website (link) or contact APF leadership (link). Readers can also learn more about the Glendale City Adventist Church in Adventist Today’s recent interview with Leonard (link).
– – –
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, and whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but will have everlasting life.
If we minister not in our own neighborhoods, how can we say we love God and our neighbors??
Pete, who said love your neighbor, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these you have done it unto me? Who said that? It doesn’t sound like the use of a sword to me. I found your answer very sad for anyone who says they are a follower of Jesus.
It is an interesting thing that reading a Scripture passage invokes negative emotions in you. It would have been wise for you to ask in which context and thought pattern I was quoting the passage, rather than assume and condemn right from the get-go.
Truth is, that these initiatives have very little to do with the gospel in its purity. As a body we are at a point in time where we are but seeking approval and positive feedback from the communitites around us, focusing on a needs-based message rather than a Christ-based message. The idea of ‘reaching’ out to the community in an effort to supply their ‘needs’, which in truth are actually ‘wants’, after which we hope to introduce them to Christ, is fallacious from the very beginning. It is like hoping that after you court and marry and unbeliever you will bring them to Christ, when in reality 99% of the time the unbeliever ends up converting the believer, and not the other way around.
What communities are in REAL need of, is a risen Savior, a High Priest who through His ministry can completely transform the heart and life. Those who are partaking of the water of life understand that we should be approaching those around us with the 3 Angels’ Messages, first and foremost. And as the doors open to us, being receptive of the message, we present the truth and THEN simulteanously we minister to their needs. This is the proper sequence.
Neither Paul nor the rest of the Apostles went from town to town seeking to fulfill people’s needs. NO! They went about with the purpose of presenting the truth in purity from town to town and as they were received by those willing to hear, they healed and served.
In light of this, it is quite a shocking realization that many of our churches today have completely lost track of the message given to us as a remnant people, the message of the 3 Angels of Revelation 14. Instead of using the methods of the worldlings in spreading the gospel, we need to return to the purity of godliness which was seen at the time of the early rain. It is the simple and plain methods which have worked in times past that will once again turn the world upside down for the glory of both Father and Son.
This sounds like just another well-intentioned “lefty” feel good initiative. I hate to see the church aligning itself with issues that dominate the left, which really doesn’t care about the individual. Everything they do is a quest for power and control. I truly hope this doesn’t end up that way.
Mmmmmm! Yummy! Tastes like leftist, socialist, activist, Adventist Acorn! SDA Communists Community Organizers, not for Jesus Christ, but, for ” economic and gender”. How long till “die-in” protests begin? Not a bit surprised that this originated in academia!
this church should be commended for their outreach. While so many are going on about the “freeloaders” they do nothing to help the children of poor urban areas that are being led down the path to addiction and crime. They don’t need money so much as caring. Glendale isn’t the only church doing community work; most don’t need an affiliation that can be misunderstood as the writers here have done. Churches should shy away from political terms being used today like “peace and justice” as they have been hijacked by the left.
What is missing here is a spiritual element in the workers that MUST include prayer and a close affiliation with Christ.If they have it, they aren’t emphasizing it. Without that human efforts will fail
Sorry to disappointment my Adventist brothers and sisters who are either apolitical or aligned with a more conservative political agenda. But some of us Adventist Christian followers of Jesus identify ourselves as progressive, green, and even socialist as part of our prayerful and deeply spiritual commitments. We see our Lord in the Gospels communing with the least of these, with the outcasts and the marginalized. And we see him speaking truth to power, exposing and calling for an end to unjust systems that exploit and abuse people, and misrepresent a God of love who cares not just about eternal destinies, but also about present realities of pain, poverty, and war. The Glendale City Church is speaking prophetically to us about the legitimate and biblical mission of the urban church to continue the healing ministry of Jesus: justice for the poor, healing for the broken, and proclaiming the Lord’s jubilee (which is an economic agenda declared in the Bible as “the year of the Lord’s favor”). Jesus’ stated these things at the beginning of his ministry, announcing his purpose and intention as Messiah.