Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Proverbs 31:8-9, NIV
The PJN annual meeting planning committee is excited to share that our 2025 annual meeting theme will be: SPEAK UP for Palestine!
Over the past 18 months, we have borne witness to an ongoing genocide in Gaza. As Christians and as the PJN, we have taken it upon ourselves to speak up alongside our Palestinian siblings in Gaza who are facing the unimaginable and for our Palestinian siblings in the West Bank whose day-to-day lives continue to become more tense and dangerous as the days pass. Just like we are called to do over and over again in the Bible, we have tried our best to speak up in the ways that we know how – through our church institutions, to our government officials, and within our local and global communities.
Much of what we do and what we say is informed by our Palestinian siblings whom we follow and honor to the best of our abilities. However, we are acutely aware of how this world has systematically silenced them through the direct targeting of Palestinian journalists, activists, and creatives inside and outside of Palestine. Therefore, as we continue to Speak Up for Palestine, we also call on each other to uplift and amplify the voices of our Palestinian siblings to the best of our ability.
During this annual meeting, we hope to offer programming that will inspire us to continue to Speak Up for Palestine. We will feature talks and workshops led by local Palestinian student activists, world-renowned Palestinian artists, and writers and thought-leaders who have put everything on the line to Speak Up for Palestine. We will also spend our time together reflecting on ways in which we have failed to speak up and moments in which we have been complicit through silence. We pray that our time together will rejuvenate and reinvigorate us to keep on Speaking Up for Palestine until Palestine is truly free.
More details to come in the coming weeks and months!
In the meantime, save the date for the PJN’s 2025 annual meeting that will take place in Madison, WI at Christ Presbyterian Church on November 14 & 15. We hope to see you there!