How MDiv Student Hannah Peterson Engages in Community Organizing to Answer Her Call
For second-year MDiv student Hannah Peterson, community organizing is imperative to living out her values. “I organize because it answers a spiritual need in my heart,” she says.
At the end of February, Peterson joined 89 others in Washington, DC for the People’s Action Institute DC Fly-In, a three-day event of lobbying congressional representatives, rallies, a press conference, an art-build in the basement of a local ELCA church, and community. The People’s Action is the national affiliate of The People’s Lobby, a local Chicago non-profit organization where Peterson works as part of her Public Church Fellowship at LSTC.
Peterson first heard about the fly-in through Cate Readling, the founder of The People’s Lobby healthcare task force, and immediately wanted to be involved. She described it as not unlike ELCA churchwide events, saying, “it’s powerful to be embodied in a broader community, to show up and really live into the example of Jesus’ more disruptive practices…I love myself enough to do this and I love my neighbor enough to do this.”
Standing behind and witnessing Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib speak in support of their campaign at the press conference on Capitol Hill was the moment that Peterson said inspired her the most in the three days. There, the People’s Action and Congressional Progressive Caucus launched the Take Back Our Money Tour, spreading the message that there are enough resources for everyone, so long as billionaires and corporations do not prevent the equitable allocation of wealth in our society.
Peterson first found her way to The People’s Lobby in 2023 through Pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square, Erin Coleman Branchaud, who earned her MDiv at LSTC in 2018. Since then, Peterson has been able to make many connections between her organizing work and degree program, especially classes with Associate Professor of Church and Society and Ethics Dr. Marvin Wickware. “You see the face of God in all these different spaces,” Peterson says. “There’s something holy about the story-telling and receiving that happens in organizing spaces.”
When asked what’s next for her in the realm of political organizing, Peterson says she’s going to let the energy from her time in DC fuel her ongoing fight for healthcare justice. The People’s Lobby has a few key pieces of healthcare legislation they’re looking at, critical at a time when threats to Medicaid are made more and more real each day.
Peterson’s experience with The People’s Lobby and at events like the fly-in are undeniably adding to her formation as a public church leader. Peterson remarked that her spiritual gifts have evolved a lot during her time at LSTC, saying, “I know I’m getting a clearer, more powerful voice when I challenge myself at these events. It’s a divine practice of taking up space and making space for others.”