Compassion, Peace, and Justice Training

Theme: Pres­by­te­ri­ans and Eco­nomic Justice

In these dif­fi­cult eco­nomic times which fur­ther divide our nation and world between the “haves and the have not’s,” it is nec­es­sary for Pres­by­te­ri­ans to lift up the min­istries that address these grow­ing eco­nomic dis­par­i­ties. The min­istries of Com­pas­sion, Peace and Jus­tice of the PC(USA) are com­ing together for the 2nd Annual CPJ Train­ing Day in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to edu­cate Pres­by­te­ri­ans on the role that the PC(USA) is play­ing in help­ing peo­ple to over­come and sur­vive these dif­fi­cult times. CPJ Train­ing Day is hosted by the Pres­by­ter­ian Office of Pub­lic Wit­ness; Pres­by­ter­ian Hunger Pro­gram; the Pres­by­ter­ian Peace­mak­ing Pro­gram; Self-Development of Peo­ple; Pres­by­ter­ian Dis­as­ter Assis­tance; the Pres­by­ter­ian Min­istry at the UN; Mis­sion Respon­si­bil­ity through Invest­ment; Envi­ron­men­tal Min­istries; Pres­by­ter­ian Health, Edu­ca­tion and Wel­fare Asso­ci­a­tion; and Child Advocacy.

Top­ics of ple­nar­ies and work­shops will include faith-based com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing, prac­ti­cal tools for sim­ple liv­ing, jus­tice as dis­ci­ple­ship mak­ing, social respon­si­bil­ity through invest­ing, and many more!

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WORKSHOP TOPICS AND LEADERS

Faith­ful Liv­ing in a Global Econ­omy
Explore how our faith in God calls us to live bet­ter and love deeper within the con­text of a global econ­omy. The work­shop includes bib­li­cal and the­o­log­i­cal reflec­tion and prac­ti­cal “how to” ideas for prac­tic­ing faith in every­day life, includ­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage your con­gre­ga­tion, fam­ily and com­mu­nity.
Leader: Melanie Hardi­son, Asso­ciate, Enough for Every­one, Pres­by­ter­ian Hunger Program

Eco-Justice: How Eco­nomic and Eco­log­i­cal Health are Enter­twined
In his work­shop, we will look at how a con­cept of “eco-justice” encom­passes eco­log­i­cal, eco­nomic, and social jus­tice for all peo­ple on a thriv­ing earth. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion will be given to how envi­ron­men­tal racism and clas­sism affect eco­nomic well-being, for indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties.
Leader: Rebecca Barnes-Davies, Asso­ciate for Envi­ron­men­tal Ministries

The Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals: Where are we? Where might we go?
The eight Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals (MDGs) — which range from halv­ing extreme poverty to halt­ing the spread of HIV/AIDS and pro­vid­ing uni­ver­sal pri­mary edu­ca­tion, all by the tar­get date of 2015 — form a blue­print agreed to by all the world’s coun­tries and all the world’s lead­ing devel­op­ment insti­tu­tions. They have gal­va­nized unprece­dented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poor­est. With three years to go until 2015, how are the coun­tries of the world doing? What might come next? How can Pres­by­te­ri­ans be involved?
Leader: Ryan Smith, Pres­by­ter­ian Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the United Nations, Pres­by­ter­ian United Nations Office

The Eco­nomic Impli­ca­tions of Occu­pa­tion
The Gen­eral Assem­bly of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) has repeat­edly called for an end to the occu­pa­tion of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. What are the eco­nomic impli­ca­tions of the occu­pa­tion — for Pales­tini­ans, for Israelis, for the United States? How can we respond?
Leader: Mark Koenig, Direc­tor, Pres­by­ter­ian United Nations Office

The Eco­nomic Cri­sis Report Going to the Gen­eral Assem­bly: Jobs, Fam­i­lies, Neigh­bors, and the Future
This work­shop looks at the cur­rent cri­sis, longer term trends, and a strong set of reme­dies being rec­om­mended to the Gen­eral Assem­bly. Let by the ethi­cist and eco­nomic devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist who co-chair the study team, the focus will be on achiev­ing jus­tice in the report’s four basic areas. Moral as well as eco­nomic argu­ments will be pro­vided, rec­og­niz­ing the influ­ence of mar­ket cat­e­gories and claims even when a range of gov­ern­ment roles are accepted. Par­tic­i­pants will also be asked what mea­sures they would want to see in church pol­icy and wit­ness.
Co-leaders: Glo­ria Albrecht and William Saint, Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Social Wit­ness Policy

Sin­gle Payer Health Insur­ance: What Hap­pened? Is There Any­thing We Can Do?
Author of the 2008 Gen­eral Assem­bly over­ture call­ing for a national sin­gle payer health plan will exam­ine the specifics of the Afford­able Care Act and lead a strat­egy ses­sion on how to defend and improve it through cit­i­zen advo­cacy.
Leader: Rev. Dr. Bebb Wheeler Stone, Pres­i­dent, Pres­by­ter­ian Health Edu­ca­tion and Wel­fare Association

Peace and the National Bud­get
What does our bud­get reveal about our national pri­or­i­ties? How is our nation’s under­stand­ing of and com­mit­ment to peace borne out in the fed­eral bud­get?
Lead­ers: Pres­by­ter­ian Peace­mak­ing Pro­gram and Leslie Woods, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Domes­tic Issues, Pres­by­te­ri­anOf­fice of Pub­lic Witness

Trade Jus­tice
While trade issues sound very far removed from our lives, global trade impacts the lives of peo­ple in explicit ways — jobs, envi­ron­ment, wages, labor, safety — both here and around the world. Our part­ners iden­tify flawed approaches to trade as a cause of poverty in their com­mu­ni­ties and seek our sup­port to reform trade poli­cies. Even in today’s com­plex, glob­al­ized world, Bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples can guide our lives. We will look at trade through a num­ber of lenses, includ­ing the extrac­tive indus­tries.
Lead­ers: Alexa Smith, Asso­ciate for National Hunger Con­cerns and Cather­ine Gor­don, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Inter­na­tional Issues, Pres­by­ter­ian Office of Pub­lic Witness

Food Sov­er­eignty ver­sus Food Secu­rity: The Dif­fer­ence? Does it Mat­ter? Yes!
The shar­ing of food is a sacred act in Chris­tian­ity and all faith tra­di­tions. Add to this the com­mand­ment to love neigh­bor near and far and we are called to cre­ate food sys­tems that reflect the sacred­ness of food, care for cre­ation and jus­tice for all peo­ple involved in the food chain. What does this look like on the ground? Where is this holy food vision sprout­ing? The Pres­by­ter­ian Hunger Pro­gram will share exam­ples, and hear your sto­ries, about pos­i­tive ini­tia­tives and move­ments to build sus­tain­able, just and sacred food sys­tems. And we’ll answer the ques­tions in the work­shop title…
Leader: Andrew Kang Bartlett, Asso­ciate for National Hunger Concerns

Afford­able Hous­ing in your Com­mu­nity
Church-Based Com­mu­nity Organz­ing is active in cre­at­ing hous­ing trust funds (at the city, county, and state lev­els) that ren­o­vate and build thou­sands of units of afford­able hous­ing, in work­ing with home­own­ers fac­ing fore­clo­sure and work­out efforts, and bring­ing power to bear to shape pol­icy and fund­ing pri­or­i­ties of var­i­ous lev­els of gov­ern­ment. This work­shop will include a primer on the prac­tices and his­tory of com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing and then look at some cur­rent efforts around afford­able hous­ing.
Leader: Trey Ham­mond, Coor­di­na­tor for Congregation-Based Com­mu­nity Orga­niz­ing, Pres­by­ter­ian Hunger Program

Putting Peace in the Protest
With Occupy Wall Street and other pop­u­lar protests around the world, we’ll look at ways to ensure that our protests are peace­ful.
Leader: Pres­by­ter­ian Peace­mak­ing Program

Achiev­ing Eco­nomic Jus­tice through Dis­as­ter Assis­tance
Prac­tice has shown that the poor and mar­gin­al­ized are dis­pro­por­tion­ately impacted by dis­as­ter. As dis­as­ter impacts com­mu­ni­ties, some peo­ple are well pro­vi­sioned and pre­pared and able to respond and recover, rely­ing on their own resources and capac­i­ties. On the other hand, some peo­ple impacted by dis­as­ter, either lose the resources they might have had prior to the dis­as­ter, or may not have pos­sessed the needed resources before the first sign of dis­as­ter. When we are called to respond fol­low­ing dis­as­ter, when we seek to assist the least of these, the peo­ple most in need of our assis­tance, most in need of our walk­ing along­side, were often pre­dis­posed to vul­ner­a­bil­ity or already vul­ner­a­ble due to injus­tice. They were fre­quently the peo­ple suf­fer­ing from injus­tice prior to the added bur­den of the dis­as­ter. As our long-term recov­ery efforts reach fam­i­lies impacted by dis­as­ter, as we host vol­un­teers to rebuild houses, these fam­i­lies have come to our atten­tion because they have nowhere else to turn, they may well not be able to return to their house with­out our assis­tance, with­out our vol­un­teers. By heed­ing the call to pro­vide dis­as­ter assis­tance, we are address­ing the most basic issues of eco­nomic jus­tice.
Lead­ers: Rick Turner, Hos­pi­tal­ity Asso­ciate and John Robin­son, National Asso­ciate, Pres­by­ter­ian Dis­as­ter Asso­ciate, Pres­by­ter­ian Dis­as­ter Assistance