The Office of Public Witness Gives Thanks

Advocacy Training Weekend

The Office of Public Witness Gives Thanks

We are grateful for your participation in the Advocacy Training Weekend Events held in the Metro DC area on April 5-8. Nearly four hundred Presbyterians registered for the two events. We had the largest delegation of participants among the fifty-four ecumenical groups participating in Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) for the third consecutive year. Your participation in the two training events is appreciated by Compassion Peace and Justice Ministries (CPJ) and the Office of Public Witness. 

We are learning from your evaluations of CPJ Training Day and EAD as well as from notes taken during our denominational gathering at EAD. We plan to make each year a stepping stone to educating more Presbyterians on the work of justice advocacy in the world. 

The Work Ahead

Our work over the next year will involve locating persons in Presbyteries and Synods to serve as liaisons to the work of our office. It is imperative that the good news of CPJ Training Day and EAD continues beyond the events of our April weekend together. Our community organizing strategy over the past three years is embracing opportunities to inspire, equip, and connect Presbyterians to ways that a prophetic witness can transform the world while growing the church deep and wide. Therefore, we will be calling on you to assist us in shaping a witness in your local congregation and governing bodies throughout the PC (U.S.A.). We believe that the hope for a transformed world begins in local communities. Our willingness to speak truth in love to power through organizing whole communities for effective justice advocacy is the challenge facing us all during this period in history. How you share the information learned during CPJ Training Day and EAD is vitally important. 

Next Steps

1.      Organize a small group in to meet in your home, church or community venue to discuss what you learned about how to become an effective advocate. Reproduce the publication from our office entitled Holy Discontentment: Lifting Your Voice for Effective Advocacy. http://www.presbyterianmission.org/media/uploads/compassion-peace-justice/pdf/holy_discontentment_advocacy_resource_final.pdf

2.     Form a justice advocacy group or committee within your congregation. Choose one issue that your group is willing to begin working on in your local community.

3.      Build alliances with other ecumenical and interfaith groups on specific community state or national issues.

4.      Sponsor a Justice Advocacy Sunday in your local Congregation. See the Presbyterian Planning Calendar for more details about celebrating around Election Day or in January 2014.

5.     Sponsor a get out to vote campaign or provide rides to the polls for people who do not own cars; cannot afford public transportation or do not drive. Also, make sure those who are able can or will vote by absentee ballots.

6.   Provide forums on pertinent political issues. Look for information in November about the Respectful Dialogue Initiative (RDI) being launched by the OPW.

7.    Volunteer to be a liaison with your Presbytery, Synod, or Congregation with the OPW. We will be offering quarterly calls to share information and news from our office and Capitol Hill.  

8.     BEGIN NOW – Plan to come to Advocacy Training Weekend next year and/or recruiting persons from your congregation to participate. The dates are March 21-24, 2014