Witness, Share and Evangelize: Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship - Holding Hope Together

Dear Peacemakers,

I’m glad to be back with you all as we move through this season of waiting, wondering, seeking, and hoping. These are holy things best done in good company.

It’s a slippery thing, hope. Maybe it always has been. It certainly is right now. It’s fragile.

We can be tempted to betray the hope we claim as peacemakers who follow Christ. We get drawn into the culture of treating hope as a sweet idea that is meaningless without our stridency, anger, even aggression to move the world toward justice. Certainly the work of justice requires much of us — our creativity, time, energy, attention, and work. And sometimes our anger is absolutely necessary. Yet I think we are denying ourselves something important when we set aside the power of hope itself, in all its unlikelihood and all its fragility.

Fragility is an incredible gift. It means we’ve stayed soft in a world that so often insists on malice and revenge. It means we are willing to let our hearts be broken for hope in what God has done, is doing, and will do. In a broken world, what a remarkable thing to acknowledge our brokenness and our hope in the same breath.

The thing is, the story of Jesus of Nazareth has always been under the rubble. He was born into a broken, violent world and died at the hands of that same broken, violent world. That didn’t diminish the hope His friends and followers lived by, and the rubble piled on their lives was unimaginably high. It was hope that carried them. That same fragile hope is what keeps Him alive in the world today.

And this is the hope we are choosing together this Advent. It’s the hope beneath our theme, Advent Under the Rubble, and the hope that sustains the work PPF is called to do in accompaniment, abolition, gun violence prevention, and building communities of care. This shared hope is made real through your prayers, your presence, and yes, your financial support.

I’m thankful to each of you for investing in hope with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship in this season. You are a necessary part of this community of hope and we are glad to share the journey with you. If you are able, I invite you to make an Advent gift to help us continue this work into the year ahead.

With hope unbroken,

Laurie

This season our theme is Advent Under the Rubble. Each week you will hear reflections from members of our community on hope, peace, joy, and love in the places where they are most needed. My prayer is that these reflections help us see where Christ is being born right now and call us to respond with courage, imagination, and steadfast love in the face of empire.

We are entering this season with a real need. To keep grounding our work in accompaniment, gun violence prevention, abolition, and the daily labor of showing up where God already is, we need to raise $81,000 by the end of the year. If you are able, I invite you to make an Advent gift today.