bcmPEACE (Brethren Community Ministries) serves Allison Hill in becoming a safer, healthier community, empowered by God’s peace.

bcmPEACE (Brethren Community Ministries) is a grassroots 501(c)3 nonprofit faith-based Community Development ministry in Harrisburg’s South Allison Hill neighborhood which is comprised of the largest concentration of low-income families between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. bcmPEACE was founded by Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren and continues to share facilities with the church as it functions as the church’s community development and social service arm. Click here to read our brochure. We share God’s love with the whole person in the context of family, neighborhood, and faith community. Life can’t be separated into spiritual, physical, emotional, intellectual, business, and social areas. God loves the whole person, seeking to bring peace (“shalom”) to all areas of life.

This concept of “Shalom” is a Hebrew term often translated as “Peace.” It refers to the wellness, peace, justice and prosperity of a community; not only the absence of violence.

We often say that we are “sharing the things that make for peace.” The phrase “things that make for peace” is drawn from Luke 19:41-42a: “He (Jesus) came closer to the city, and when he saw it, He wept over it, saying, “If you only understood today the things that make for peace!”