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Foley United Methodist Church
915 N Pine St
Foley, AL 36535
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FOLEY - On Sunday, October 1, Path to Peace South Baldwin County, a Christian Witness to Racial Reconciliation, will host an event to bring together the entire community. The event will take place at the Spirit Center at Foley United Methodist Church (915 Pine Street) from 3-4:30pm, and will be free and open to everyone.

According to the Path to Peace group: “Path to Peace is a Christian effort to witness unity in Christ, in the face of racial and ethnic divisions,” and their mission statement says: “The Path to Peace movement facilitates personal friendships across racial boundaries through engaging community events and activities. We strive to be non-partisan, biblically-based, and Christ centered to expose and eradicate racism.”

Path to Peace began in November 2016 in the Eastern Shore area in response to all the shootings in America, both of civilians and of law enforcement. Christians came together to host a big event in Daphne because of the tragedies, and the plan was formed to continue with a second event going into 2017. The South Baldwin Path to Peace began meeting in April 2017, and eventually the Eastern Shore group settled on beginning a partnership with the South Baldwin group. Instead of putting on two separate main events, the two groups decided that the South Baldwin group would host the event in Foley, with support from the Eastern Shore members.

Since beginning the South Baldwin group, the members have already expanded.

“Something that we’re doing that’s new is reaching out to the Hispanic community,” said Steven Kurtz, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Gulf Shores. “So our circle is actually wider, which is really great.”

The Path to Peace Eastern Shore started with organization help from Ecumenical Ministries, and more specifically their subgroup Act-II, or All Congregations Together. While neither Path to Peace organizations are part of Act-II, they are all working towards unity in communities, and everywhere.

The event taking place on October 1 will consist of worship, speakers, music and greetings from black, white, and Hispanic congregations in South Baldwin County, as well as representatives from law enforcement and fire protection. The event is free of charge and open to everyone, and the members of Path to Peace urge and welcome everyone to attend. Food will be served during the event, featuring hand-foods such as hot dogs, burgers, chips, and cookies.

During the event, attenders will be greeted by two of the founding members from the Eastern Shore Path to Peace, as well as local presenters and music.

“The idea is that we’ll have 3 musical presentations, just like we’re going to have 3 speakers,” said Kurtz. “One black, one white, and one Hispanic, so 3 musical performances, one black, one white, and one Hispanic, and then everyone come together for a mass choir song at the end.”

The Snook Youth musicians will be present as well, providing prelude music as well as music during the dinner party at the end. The music will be less performance and more participatory, and everyone attending is welcome to join the singing and share in the opportunity to be part of the songs. Simultaneous translation will be provided during the entire event, so all congregations will have the chance to share in each presenter.

“I don’t see how what we’re doing is that much different than the story of Antioch,” said John Thomas, Pastor of Young Families and Discipleship at Foley United Methodist. “We are established churches around the area, and we’re reaching out to try to show people in our area that we are united in our faith and in our beliefs. But just like in Jerusalem, they sent out people to Antioch and their excitement and their joy and their love of God led them to speak not only to other Jews, but to all the people around them. And God grew a new church, the most diverse church of the time, out of that excitement, out of that joy, out of that love of God. And that’s what we’re doing here, is we are coming together as a diverse group saying we love God. We’re excited about it.”

The mission of the October 1 event will be to focus on racial harmony and reconciliation, so while there are other topics that the group finds relevant, they are keeping the event clean in terms of focus on the issue. However, they hope that if this event is successful, then it could open the door to hosting even more events in the future and touching on other topics that are crucial in today’s society. The Path to Peace wants to continue to spread messages of unity, love, and God’s Word in a deeper, longer term way, and hope that this will be the beginning of something much bigger and impacting.

“God said it’s just not good enough for the church to just be one color,” said Lead Pastor Nolan Donald of Foley United Methodist. “It’s supposed to be good for all people, in all places, so that’s what we’re going to try to do on the first of October.”

The group meets every two weeks, with morning meetings on Tuesday at 8am, and an evening meeting on Thursday at 6pm, so that everyone who wishes to can attend. The next morning meeting will be on September 19, and the next evening meeting will be September 21. Meetings are open to everyone, and take place in the Spirit Center at Foley United Methodist Church. No final decisions are made at a meeting until both the morning group and the evening group have been consulted. There is also not one single leadership in the group, and they provide rotating leadership between some of the South Baldwin founders.

To learn more about Path to Peace South Baldwin, you can find them on Facebook at Facebook.com/SouthBaldwinPeace. The members encourage everyone to like and share their page to help spread the word on what they’re working towards here in the community. The more the event and group are shared, the more people they will be able to reach.