From Weapons to Plowshares: A Journey of Faith, Healing and Hope in Dallas-Fort Worth

Seeds of hope were planted in Dallas County in September at a Guns to Gardens event. Over 35 volunteers gathered to support the dismantling of 49 unwanted guns. On the previous day, 36 guns were dismantled in Fort Worth. 

This is no small feat in Texas, where the power of the gun lobby and passive thoughts and prayers abound. Transforming 85 guns may not sound like much in a state that houses over a million registered guns and an average of 4,330 people die by gun violence every year. 

But a small group of the faithful heeded the call to put their prayers into action. 

Journey of Faith

Photo by Amy Moore

The image of swords beaten into plowshares has long been a prophetic call for peace and renewal for the common good. Where the presence of firearms evokes division, anxiety, and violence, the act of dismantling guns and forging them into life-giving garden tools and works of art stands as a powerful metaphor. The vision rejects violence and embraces a courageous narrative of healing and new life.

The sincerity of “thoughts and prayers” offered by legislators has grown increasingly thin, and legally addressing the availability of guns remains elusive. This makes the issue of gun violence a pressing call of conscience. 

The questions “What if we could do more than lament? What if we could put faith into action?” became the genesis of an invitation to interfaith partners.

Monthly meetings began with the intention of listening, researching and engaging in prayerful discernment to determine what was ours to do. Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, Jewish and Disciples of Christ congregations across Dallas and Tarrant counties extended arms of support. 

Strategic formation through a five-week Action Circle training offered by the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship led to the decision to host Guns to Gardens events in both Dallas and Tarrant counties the first weekend of September 2025. In coordination with RAWtools, these would be the first Guns to Gardens events held in Texas.

Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church hosted the Tarrant County event, while the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration hosted the Dallas County gathering. The Dallas County planning team included Pastor Armel Crocker (Faith United Presbyterian Church, Dallas), Rev. Amy W. Moore (NorthPark Presbyterian Church, Dallas), Rev. Allison Sandlin Liles (St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Hurst), Rev. R. Casey Shobe (Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, Dallas), Jan Orr-Harter (Presbyterian Peace Fellowship), Georgia McKee (Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas), Mara Richards-Bim (Royal Lane Baptist Church, Dallas) and Rep. Rhetta Bowers (District 113). 

Volunteers from local congregations, community organizations, Everytown, Moms Demand Action, and the North Texas Blacksmith Association also contributed to the effort.

Healing

Gun violence is complex, layered with grief, policy, economics and trauma. Guns to Gardens offered the opportunity to embody small acts of faith for people choosing transformation over despair. Volunteers experienced a sense of agency and renewed faith by acting together rather than waiting for someone else.

Community members donating their guns for dismantling shared stories of healing and moral witness. An ex-military man, now a father of young children, brought in his assault rifle, stating, “No one needs an AR-15.” The parents of an 8-year-old resolved that it was their moral witness to dismantle an inherited AR-15. Still another arrived with a stash of shotguns that he had inherited from his father. Neither he nor his siblings hunted or had any desire to use the guns, and they jointly decided it was irresponsible to sell them back into the marketplace. With open grief over letting go of his father’s belongings, the son found comfort in shaping a life-giving legacy in his father’s name.

As volunteer blacksmiths found relief from their corporate day jobs, it was inspiring to watch them transform cut-up pieces of firearms into tools for growth and hope. From start to finish, the event was a living image of transformation—turning instruments of harm into legacies of healing.

Hope

The movement to repurpose firearms is not without challenges. Dismantling guns is a logistical and legal endeavor, subject to regulations that vary across jurisdictions. 

Securing the necessary permissions, ensuring the safe handling of weapons, and overseeing their destruction require coordination and expertise. Yet forging guns into garden tools is both deeply symbolic and tangibly lasting. A tool born from the legacy of violence becomes a beacon of prophetic imagination for peace, echoing Micah 4:3:

They will beat their swords into plowshares

    and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

    nor will they train for war anymore.

Everyone will sit under their own vine

    and under their own fig tree,

and no one will make them afraid.

by Armel Crocker and Amy Moore