At least once a month this church lights a Peace Candle and prays for peace. In doing so, we join many other churches around the world who do the same.

In 1986 a group of American Christians visited Russia. After a service in a Russian Orthodox Church in Odessa, an elderly woman pushed three roubles into the hand of the minister leading the party. She asked him to buy a candle and light it in his church as a symbol of peace.

When he returned home Dr Monie duly bought a candle in a glass holder and placed it on the communion table in the First Presbyterian Church, York, Pennsylvania. This candle is lit at every service of worship. Later that year the church decided to buy a supply of candles and holders, inviting members of the congregation to send them to other churches with which they had contact. Two members of the congregation had previously been members of a United Reformed Church in England, and they sent a candle to their former church. That church decided to do likewise... and now candles are being sent far and wide.

When Judith and Richard from our church worshipped in the Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, London, on Sunday 11th August 1996 they were asked to bring a candle back to Canberra. Bloomsbury had received their candle when one of their ministers had preached at Great Missenden Baptist Church in Buckinghamshire, England.

At a time when peace for many people in our world seems only a distant dream, and when threats to peace in so many places are very great, we here at Canberra Baptist Church invite you to join us in a renewed commitment to pray for peace.

Visitors here on one of our "Peace Sundays" are invited to accept a small candle and take it back to their church as a reminder of our calling to be peacemakers.

So may the old Russian woman's yearning and prayer for peace be echoed in the hearts of millions around the world.

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