12 days of virtual conversations, workshops, and collective discernment
Online | Open to all

In a world that seems rife with fear, division, and violence, what does it look like for Christians to live lives guided by hope and mercy? Everywhere we look we see stories about war, oppression and genocide. We see climate disasters and their resulting toll on all aspects of creation, and we see families, churches, and politicians dehumanizing each other over politics and identities.

Followers of Jesus are called to prophetically speak against evil and hatred, but we are also called to speak and live into new ways of being, new possibilities for the future, new visions of a just and peaceful society that echo the world to come. So in these times that we live in, how can Christians offer a new narrative to the world?

For the 12 days between the International Day of Peace (September 21) and the International Day of Nonviolence (October 2), we are bringing together peacebuilders, theologians, and grassroots practitioners from across the globe for a series of online events exploring how Christians and other justice-seekers can respond  with courage, creativity, and compassion to the crises permeating this world. From deconstructing harmful theologies to learning diverse strategies for nonviolent resistance, we will deepen our understanding, expand our imagination, and strengthen our collective witness.

Scroll down to see all the events, and sign up to join as many as you like.
You can also support this initiative and help us continue to make conversations like this freely available by making a donation at https://secure.qgiv.com/for/12daysofpeace2026/

September 21

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September 30

October 1

October 2

The Events

Changing the Narrative: Recovering the Christian Story of Liberation, Justice, and Holistic Peace for All

SEPTEMBER 21 | 1:00-2:30PM ET

The Christian story has too often been narrated in terms of empire, domination, exclusion, and violence. So how do we recover and retell the Christian story around Jesus’ way of liberation, healing, justice, reconciliation, and holistic peace? 

This opening panel - held on the International Day of Peace - will kick off our 12 Days of Peace event with a substantive conversation about how the dominant narratives we’ve inherited have been shaped by empire and systems of power. And most importantly, we'll discuss what it might look like to reclaim the Christian narrative around the story and way of Jesus.

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  • David Zac Niringiye is a bishop in the Church of Uganda (Anglican); a scholar-activist, philosopher-theologian; and, an organizational development consultant. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of African Realities (ISAR) at Africa International University in Nairobi, Kenya. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics degree (Honours) and a teaching Diploma from Makerere University; a Master’s degree in Theological Studies from Wheaton College, USA; and, a PhD in Theology and Mission History from Edinburgh University. Dr. Niringiye’s publications include The Church: God’s Pilgrim People and The Church in the World: A Historical-Ecclesiological Study of the Church of Uganda with Particular Reference to Post-Independence Uganda, 1962-1992 as well as several papers in journals and chapters in books. 

  • Samuel Salim Munayer, a Palestinian theologian from Jerusalem, holds a BA in Theology and Philosophy from Durham University and an MA in Middle Eastern Politics from the University of Exeter, where he was supervised by Ilan Pappé. He currently works as the Advocacy and Safety Coordinator for a humanitarian organisation working in Palestine. Samuel has authored several articles, including “Decolonizing Palestinian Liberation Theology: New Methods, Sources, and Voices,” and is the co-editor of the book, The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology Amid Gaza.

  • Bryan is a peacebuilding consultant, conflict transformation trainer, and Director of International Peacebuilding at Peace Catalyst International. He hosts workshops, conducts training, and teaches about peace-oriented theology, peacebuilding practices, and how Christian groups can get involved in community peacebuilding. He regularly organizes learning experiences for international and regional Balkan participants that cultivate understanding and empathy for the narratives of other groups, ultimately with the aim to deepen relational connections that allow for collaborative work. 

Peace Within: Trauma Healing, Resilience, and Spiritual Formation 

SEPTEMBER 22 | 10:00-11:30AM ET

A refusal of violence requires us to change the narratives we tell ourselves: our assumptions about God, our internalized narratives, and our ways of relating to ourselves and others. To move toward Jesus’ way of peace, justice, and liberation, we must undertake the difficult work of addressing the stories we carry about our own worth, how God sees us, and what Christianity expects from us. 

To become people who can embody a different way of being in the world, practices centered on trauma healing, resilience, spiritual formation, and self-awareness can help move us toward an inner peace that enables us to confront injustice and move toward liberation for all.

Join our conversation with Amber Oda and licensed trauma therapist Mirela Popaja-Hadžić on healing as a form of peacebuilding. This 90-minute dialogue will include space for reflection and encourage opportunities for participation.

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  • Born in Sarajevo in the 1980’s, Mirela had a front row seat to the breakup of Yugoslavia and the siege of Sarajevo. In her twenties, Mirela realized that the war impacted her more deeply than she had previously acknowledged, and this realization launched her into an introspective journey to grapple with and heal from her own trauma. It also catalyzed a process of theological and philosophical reflection about how to lament and embrace the hardships of life. Her own unaddressed grief and trauma came to the surface, and she came to understand the importance of grief as part of the process of healing and reconciliation.

    As a Bosniak Protestant from a Muslim background, Mirela had prejudice toward Serbs and Croats despite the fact that she grew up with them. Dealing with her own grief helped her become open to and connect with people across ethnic divisions, so that she saw their grief, wounds, and stories as similar to her own.

    This individual healing process clarified her sense of personal calling and mission: to work for individual and collective healing through mental health and peacebuilding work. She has over 10 years of experience working in both for-profit and non-profit sectors in project coordination, program management, training, facilitation, and translation. She is a licensed Gestalt psychotherapist with experience supporting clients navigating breast cancer, unresolved trauma, anxiety, addiction, grief, anger, and patterns of victimhood. Drawing on both therapeutic and creative approaches, she incorporates artistic practices such as Kintsugi to help individuals process pain, embrace brokenness with compassion, and move toward healing and restoration. She is also an affiliate trainer with Trauma Free World and holds a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Sarajevo.

  • Amber Oda is a peacebuilding and trauma healing practitioner, facilitator, and life-long learner currently living and practicing in Kekionga, “the Blackberry Patch”: the sacred homeland of the Miami people, also known as Fort Wayne, Indiana. Rooted in the values of community, simple living, hospitality, and integrity, Amber draws upon the wells of wisdom of her family (biological, chosen, and gifted) and an abundance of teachers and guides along her journey. 

    Amber brings to Peace Catalyst two decades of experience partnering with communities impacted by violence and oppression to heal from trauma and collaborate to change the conditions of their struggles. The desire to collaborate on healing and justice initiatives has led Amber to work with refugee communities and survivors of human trafficking in Uganda, with immigrants at Jubilee Partners, a Christian intentional community in Georgia, USA, and with youth in a nonviolent leadership program in Ft. Wayne. Currently, she partners with local peacebuilders who are re-imagining responses to harm, integrating healing practices on personal and collective levels, and cultivating abundant, thriving communities. 

    Amber has a masters degree in Transformational Leadership from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. She is married to Mohamed, who is Sudanese and a peacebuilder at heart, and they share four children: Nadeem, Amaya, Rumi, and Nijayma. Amber and Mohamed have a deep desire to continue finding ways to collaborate with Sudanese communities on healing and rebuilding communities impacted by war and genocide in Sudan and around the world. 

Peace in the Church: Navigating Disagreement, Cultivating Curiosity, and Practicing Reconciliation Within Christian Communities

SEPTEMBER 23 | 3:00-4:30PM ET

Conflict is an inevitable fact of life, but what if we were to view it not as something to fear or avoid, but as an opportunity to build deeper relationships with God and each other? If we seek to challenge the violence of this world by reminding Christians that Jesus’ way is justice, reconciliation, and holistic peace, we must be able to live out that story together, and this requires navigating conflict with courage and with love. 

Join us for this conversation with Michael Gulker, president of The Colossian Forum, an organization that invites Christians to look past difference to find opportunities for deeper connection. Michael will explore what it means to cultivate the courage and curiosity necessary to establish connections across conflict, as well as how churches might move toward genuine reconciliation - and model this kind of reconciliation to the world.

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  • Michael Gulker is a passionate leader deeply invested in the polarized intersection of faith and culture, exploring how both can thrive when grounded in love of God and love of neighbor. Since 2011, he has served as president of The Colossian Forum, which invites people to cultivate connection across differences.


    Michael’s efforts with The Colossian Forum have been recognized in major media outlets, including the The Wall Street Journal and Leap of Faith, a documentary directed by Nicholas Ma that explores whether we can disagree and still belong to each other in a divided world.


    A native of West Michigan, Michael studied philosophy and theology at Calvin College before earning his divinity degree from Duke Divinity School. He is also an ordained Mennonite pastor. He and his wife Jodie live in West Michigan with their two children.

Peace with the Earth: Faith-Rooted Stories and Tools for Eco-Peacebuilding

SEPTEMBER 24 | 5:00-6:30PM ET

What does it mean for Christians to build peace with the earth? What are the biblical implications of Christ renewing all things, and how do we join Christ in that work where we are today? 

Join us for this workshop to focus on our relationship to land, water, our non-human community, and our neighbors who bear the brunt of ecological destruction. Together we will discuss what the Scriptures say about our relationship to the earth, how Scripture applies to the crises of our time, and how we might put our Christian faith into action. We will share hopeful stories of changemakers who bring faith to bear in healing the wounds of creation. Joe Alexander-Meinholz brings his experience from the frontlines of Indigenous-led environmental justice on the Mississippi River and the farmlands of the Upper Midwest, while Kirsten Schlewitz talks about everyday actions individuals and communities can take to make a difference in how we come into communion with creation.

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  • Joe Alexander-Meinholz is a poet, Christian worship leader, and community organizer who has spent the last decade engaged in frontline struggles for environmental justice in the Upper Midwest of the United States. 

    Joe now resides in Des Moines, Iowa, where he is equipping Christians to build peace with the Earth by addressing harmful farming practices, the clean water crisis, and the church-supported colonial history of land theft. He guides churches to be more connected to the land, water, and fellow species where they worship, and to reckon with the racial injustice that shapes how we relate to Creation. Joe serves on the spiritual care team of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, a movement of churches working on Indigenous justice issues in North America.

    Previously, Joe served as a community organizer for Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, where he mobilized faith communities to engage in solidarity with Anishinaabe water protectors as they worked to stop Enbridge’s Line 3 oil pipeline from crossing the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Joe also worked in his own neighborhood in Minneapolis to halt toxic pollutants and reclaim neighborhood control of abandoned industrial areas threatening the health of neighbors. Based on these experiences, he is passionate about Christians learning to see Christ in Creation, where salvation means daily bread for all, rest for the land, home for the sojourner, justice for the displaced, and reconciliation of all things in Christ.

    Joe holds a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Missional Innovation and Conflict Transformation from Duke Divinity School. 

  • Kirsten Schlewitz educates current and future pastors and church leaders on how peacebuilding can bridge their congregations’ spiritual practices and active engagement in their communities. 

    Kirsten embraces digital ministry and virtual education because, as a neurodivergent woman with chronic illness and hidden disability, it is vitally important to her to reach people who sometimes feel left out of changemaking efforts or excluded from communities due to mental and/or physical difference.

    She lives far away from her native Pacific Northwest because she met her Yugoslav husband while studying peace and reconciliation in Bosnia, and they and their two cats moved to Belgrade, Serbia in 2016. There, she lives out her commitment to peacebuilding by amplifying the voices of Balkan nonprofits dedicated to justice, reconciliation, and social changemaking, widening their reach so they can attract more people to their events and secure more funding for future campaigns. 

Co-Resistance as an Alternative Approach to Reconciliation and Peacebuilding

SEPTEMBER 26 | 9:00-10:30AM ET

Christian approaches to peace and reconciliation in Palestine have often resulted in limited success, or even outright failure. One reason for this is that even peace-oriented Christian narratives and frameworks can themselves become shaped by the assumptions of empire. Words like "peace", "reconciliation", and "dialogue" can become problematic when detached from questions of power, justice, occupation, and liberation. But what does it mean to reshape the meaning of these words from a context shaped by unequal power dynamics and dominant political forces?

Musalaha is a faith-based organization dedicated to exploring the dynamics of reconciliation among Palestinians and Israelis and working to overcome ethnic, religious, and social barriers. In this conversation we'll be talking with executive director Daniel Munayer about the concept of co-resistance, how this approach to peacebuilding has developed, and what new Christian narratives are emerging through this work.

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  • Based in Jerusalem, Daniel Munayer serves as the Executive Director of Musalaha, an organization dedicated to teaching, facilitating, and training reconciliation between diverse ethnic, religious, and social groups. Drawing on his Palestinian and Christian heritage, Daniel combines intellectual insight with practical skills to develop a decolonial and indigenous approach to reconciliation. His work emphasizes freedom for the oppressed and redemption for the oppressors, grounded in the humanization of all.

    Before his tenure at Musalaha, he co-founded Lighthouse Relief on Lesvos Island, a humanitarian start-up addressing the refugee crisis in Greece. He also worked with the Danish Refugee Council and Nonviolent Peaceforce, responding to humanitarian crises in Greece and Iraq.

    Daniel holds an MBA in Strategic Management from Durham University Business School in the UK and a BA in International Relations and Religious Studies from American University in Washington, D.C.

Re-Storying Christian Faith and Peacebuilding From the Perspective of South African Struggle and Solidarity

SEPTEMBER 27 | 11:00AM-12:30PM ET

Join us for a conversation with Mzwandile Nkutha, Nkosivumile Gola, and Buyisiwe Putu from Iziko Lamaqabane, an organization working in relational solidarity with urban peace and justice practitioners throughout Africa. Their dialogue centers around a quotation by Frantz Fanon, from his book A Dying Colonialism:

“There is, first of all, the fact that the colonized person, who in this respect is like the human in underdeveloped countries or the disinherited in all parts of the world, perceives life not as a flowering or a development of an essential productiveness, but as a permanent struggle against an omnipresent death. This ever-menacing death is expected as endemic famine, unemployment, a high death rate, an inferiority complex and the absence of any hope for the future. All this gnawing at the existence of the colonized tends to make of life something resembling an incomplete death” (p. 128).

The three will discuss the meaning of peace and justice in a context of histories shaped and formed by coloniality. 

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  • Mziwandile (Mzi) Nkutha is Director of Iziko Lamaqabane. Mzi grew up in Soweto and still carries significant Kasi (township) culture with him. Township life is an ongoing hybrid and croele (re)production of the political and cultural expression of creolization. It is a gift that assists him to both understand our world but more so, to contribute to the making and reshaping of the world. His social interests includes learning from different cultural experiences, including the love of (Afro)jazz, good food, and good African coffees. He lives in Alberton, south of Johannesburg, with his spouse and daughter.

  • Nkosi Gola is an activist and community organiser fascinated with and closely studying the Black church’s expression of justice. He is particularly interested in how this institution, the church, serves as a hub of black resistance, both covertly and overtly.

    Nkosi is working at Iziko Lamaqabane as Director of Urban African Solidarity, Black Church, Black Theology Engagement, and Programs Manager.

  • Buyisiwe Putu is a Black South African accountant by profession and founder of Iziko Lamaqabane, where she serves as Director of Afro Feminist-Womanist Solidarity and Operations Manager. Her work bridges financial expertise, theological reflection, and grassroots organising to advance justice-centred community development. Working at the intersection of faith, land, gender, and economic dignity, she collaborates with women in township and rural contexts to strengthen agriculture-for-liberation initiatives, leadership formation, and sustainable livelihoods. She intentionally connects grassroots women's lived knowledge with academic and theological discourse, ensuring that community wisdom informs institutional practice. Her leadership integrates financial accountability, contextual theology, and African feminist praxis to ensure that development initiatives are economically sound, strategically managed, and socially transformative.

Peace in Society: Living Public Discipleship Through Civic Engagement, Community Organizing, and Nonviolent Action

SEPTEMBER 28 | 2:00-3:30PM ET

If we believe that the Christian story is ultimately about liberation, justice, reconciliation, and holistic peace, then what does it mean for Christians to embody that story in the public square—not just through what we believe or say, but through how we organize, build relationships, confront injustice, and work for the flourishing of our communities? 

Join Peter Digitale Anderson and Steven Schallert for a dialogue on social movements, civil resistance, and nonviolent action. They will reflect on both the tensions present in such spaces, and the hope they have as they see people strive to change narratives and create a better story for themselves and their communities.

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  • Peter is Peace Catalyst’s Executive Director and Program Director in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he is equipping community peacemakers and collaborating with others for racial justice and healing. His projects include facilitating a healing and practice space for white men undoing white supremacist and patriarchal cultures; organizing white folk, especially people of faith, to work for racial justice alongside BIPOC partners; providing nonviolent protection for civilians and training others in safety skills; building community and inspiring activists through singing circles; and more. In addition, Peter leads trainings in conflict transformation, nonviolence, trauma awareness and healing, and community-based peacebuilding. 

  • Steve Schallert is a peacebuilder, organiser, educator and practitioner of Kingian-Nonviolent Conflict Transformation living and practicing in Cape Town, South Africa. Mentored by the Catholic Worker Movement and Plowshares tradition, for the past two decades Steve has helped develop and facilitate dozens of conflict transformation schools and projects in diverse conflict and post-conflict contexts such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, and South Africa. His current passions centre on supporting and developing young peace and justice practitioners who are engaged in healing the walls of hostility within their communities.

    Locally, Steve serves as the Director of International Solidarity with Iziko Lamaqabane, a faith-based support centre for urban peace and justice practitioners throughout Africa. By working in relational solidarity with local practitioners, Iziko Lamaqabane serves those active at the site of struggle by facilitating spaces of retreat, exchange and collective learning grounded at the intersection of anabaptism, black liberation theology & critical consciousness.

Bridging Divides and Healing Divisions Amidst Growing Polarization in the United States

SEPTEMBER 29 | 4:00-5:30PM ET

How can Christians and other justice-seekers respond to growing polarization, injustice, and division in the United States? Does transformation occur by building power and organizing people, by changing relationships and narratives, or some combination of both?

We invite you to join our conversation with Troy Jackson of Undivided and Andrew Hanauer of One America about the work their organizations are doing to build relationships and seek justice across the widening gaps in U.S. society. Our conversation will explore how their approaches overlap, where they diverge, and what each can learn from the other, with both bringing their own wisdom to answer the question, “What kind of Christian public witness can both tell the truth about injustice and create enough common ground for people to imagine and build a different future together?”

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  • CEO of UNDIVIDED, Community organizer, pastor, leader and writer, Troy Jackson, has been with UNDIVIDED since its founding. He is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and earned his PH.D in U.S. history from the University of Kentucky.

    Troy’s book Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008) explores the critical role the grassroots Montgomery Movement played in the development of Dr. King. His other publications include his work as an editor on The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume VI:Advocate of the Social Gospel (September 1948-March 1963) (University of California Press, 2007). With their children grown, Troy and his wife moved to a cabin outside of Cincinnati, OH with their two dogs, Pip and Pico.

  • Andrew Hanauer is the President and CEO of the One America Movement, an organization founded by faith leaders to fight toxic polarization. One America supports faith leaders and faith communities to reject toxic forms of division and offer a moral vision that transcends our divisive and disconnected culture. Under Andrew’s leadership, the One America Movement has become one of the largest and fastest growing organizations combating division in American society, quintupling in size in the past three years.

    Andrew is a frequent public speaker at houses of worship of all kinds and has represented One America before gatherings of the National Governors' Association, Americorps, Points of Light, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and many more, and podcasts as wide ranging as Fuller Seminary and Islamic Relief USA. His work has been published or featured by USA Today, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Salon, the Christian Citizen, and media outlets across the US.

Living an Alternative Story Amid Violence and War: Becoming the Firstfruits of the New Creation

SEPTEMBER 30 | 12:00-1:30PM ET

Join us as Ramy Taleb and Roula Geryes Taleb share stories and reflect upon their work with Al Shabiba Risala, an organization whose mission is to enable the emerging generation in Lebanon to flourish so that they are free and equipped to pursue peace within themselves and their communities. We will also discuss how all of us can begin to live differently as a restored community and be the "firstfruits" of healthy, inclusive relationships across difference … even when life feels extremely difficult.

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  • Ramy Taleb is a Lebanese Christian leader, educator, and peacebuilder who has spent more than 20 years working at the intersection of faith, reconciliation, and community transformation. He is the Co-Founder and Director of Al Shabiba Risala (Youth for the Message), a movement in Lebanon committed to nurturing peace, reconciliation, and holistic discipleship among youth, families, and communities shaped by conflict. Ramy also serves as Acting Dean of the College of Humanities and International Studies at the University of the Nations (YWAM) in the Middle East, where he mentors emerging leaders and teaches on biblical reconciliation, peacebuilding, and transformational leadership.

    Having spent five years living and working in Northern Ireland, alongside decades of engagement in Lebanon, Ramy brings a deeply relational and cross-cultural perspective to questions of conflict, identity, faith, and healing in divided societies. Through teaching, speaking, and community engagement, he equips Christian leaders and communities to embody the Gospel of peace with humility, courage, and practical solidarity amid social and political tensions.

  • Roula Geryes Taleb is a wife, mother of two, and Lebanese peacebuilding specialist, programme manager, researcher, and curriculum developer with over 15 years of experience in peacebuilding, reconciliation, psychosocial support, education, and youth leadership. She is the Co-Founder and Programme Manager of Al Shabiba Risala and holds a Master’s degree with Distinction in Reconciliation and Peacebuilding from the University of Winchester. Roula has developed several peacebuilding resources, including the Nine Arrows curriculum, forgiveness and peace journey curriculum and The Adventures of Tuma children’s series. She also works internationally as a consultant, trainer, and speaker, helping organisations and communities promote wellbeing, reconciliation, and peaceful conflict transformation.

Arts & Imagination: Music, Art, and Creativity as Practices that Form Communities of Peace

OCTOBER 1 | 8:00-9:30PM ET

Your gifts—whether art, music, poetry, theater, gardening, crafting, or any number of innovative endeavors—can help enact genuine change. In fact, we think they're essential to the work of seeking justice and pursuing holistic peace in our communities. Your gifts can be used to help organize your neighbors, turn our protests into a party, and help make our path to liberation together beautiful. 

Join Liz Digitale Anderson for a 90-minute workshop to get inspired to consider new ways to form communities of peace. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Liz approaches resistance and healing by bringing people together in acts of community singing, amongst other creative nonviolent practices.

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  • Liz Digitale Anderson, Peace Catalyst Program Director in the Twin Cities, is a song leader and organizer who equips community peacemakers and collaborates with others for racial justice and healing. Liz weaves somatics and spiritual practices with song circles, which they use to create sacred space amid direct action, tend to grief and trauma, build community, and invite people to imagine new possibilities and liberated futures. 

A More Good and Beautiful Faith: Growing the Movement for Jesus’s Way of Peace

OCTOBER 2 | 11:00AM-12:30PM ET

Can the church as we know it be transformed?

For many people, Christianity is a source of harm and violence, not healing or care. From exclusion over politics, theology, and identity, to the horrors of endorsing imperialism, militarism, genocide, and supremacist beliefs, the church has a long track record of being a place of domination and destruction. 

But this is not the whole story. For as long as dominant Christianity has preached a gospel of fear, control, and conformity, there have been believers and communities on the margins living out a better story, a counter-narrative pointing toward a faith rooted in love, justice, and peace. We can see throughout history, as we have seen in these 12 Days of Peace, that Jesus’s Way of Peace continues to bear witness in the church today. 

These different stories of Christianity, these two broad understandings of the Way of Jesus, compete against each other in our nations, our traditions, and within congregations. How do we find ourselves within this global movement for peace within the church? How do we cultivate a different vision of the faith in our communities, and shift our institutions and practices to grow that vision? And how do we understand our local expressions of peace and justice as part of a larger and historic movement for the Way of Jesus transforming and renewing Christianity from the inside out?

Join Ciara Taylor from Freedom Church of the Poor, Diana Oestreich from The Waging Peace Project, and Peter Digitale Anderson from Peace Catalyst International for a lively conversation about movement building in the church, growing and embodying a liberating faith, and charting a path forward in the years to come. 

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  • Diana Oestreich is the founder of The Waging Peace Project, a movement activating everyday people to disarm violence and cultivate lives marked by courage, justice, and joy. Her approach is both practical and disruptive—she insists that peacemaking is not reserved for the extraordinary—it belongs to all of us, ordinary people in action.

    She is a nationally recognized speaker and has appeared at major conferences, faith gatherings, and global forums. As an artist, she engages in material acts of transformation, and through creative culture making initiatives like the Duluth Peace Hero Awards, she centers a culture of peace through community storytelling by putting unsung and unseen voices in public to be celebrated and supported.

    Diana is a registered nurse who has worked with hospice and cancer patients, and later as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, where she advocated for survivors and helped bridge the gap between survivors of violence and  justice.

    Her book, Waging Peace: One Soldier’s Story of Putting Love First, became an Amazon #1 new release and challenges the belief that violence is necessary or inevitable. Instead, it calls for a radical allegiance towards love—not as sentiment, but as the most powerful force capable of transforming our future, our communities, and our planet. 

  • Ciara Taylor is an educator, artist, movement strategist, and minister with the Freedom Church of the Poor, a spiritual and political home for leaders committed to building a movement led by the poor to end poverty. Rooted in the belief in the fundamental dignity and value of all life and in a world of abundance where all can thrive, the Freedom Church seeks to cultivate a practice of faith grounded in truth, justice, love, and collective liberation.

    Minister Taylor serves as Director of Culture, Faith, and Organizing at the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice and is a founding member of Songs in the Key of Resistance (SKOR). Ciara’s work draws on song, prayer, poetry, visual art, and historical memory as practices of resistance and collective transformation. 

    Her projects include Songs in the Key of Resistance: A Movement Songbook, Power in the Air, We Do Not Move Alone, and contributions to We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor (2025). SKOR’s recently released self-titled album, Songs in the Key of Resistance, is available on all major music platforms. 

  • Peter is Peace Catalyst’s Executive Director and Program Director in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he is equipping community peacemakers and collaborating with others for racial justice and healing. His projects include facilitating a healing and practice space for white men undoing white supremacist and patriarchal cultures; organizing white folk, especially people of faith, to work for racial justice alongside BIPOC partners; providing nonviolent protection for civilians and training others in safety skills; building community and inspiring activists through singing circles; and more. In addition, Peter leads trainings in conflict transformation, nonviolence, trauma awareness and healing, and community-based peacebuilding.