Bruce Schenk is a Lutheran pastor and the director of Canada's International Institute for Restorative Practices. The IIRP is an internationally affiliated organization dedicated to education and research in restorative justice—an approach to community conflict that emphasizes relationships. Bruce has worked in the area for the past 15 years, using his skills in contexts ranging from incarcerated juvenile offenders to church congregational decisions.
Now, he's bringing what he's learned to a wider audience. His trainings have been sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada to better equip clergy and laity to foster healthy relationships and manage conflict.
I asked Tom Albright of Ripple Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania how Schenk's philosophy has impacted his congregation. "Shalom and reconciliation are the heart of the gospel," Albright said. "Restorative practices give us the tools to enact peace, redemption, reconciliation, and healthy relationships." Ripple's pastoral staff are all trained in restorative practices—a story for another day, but one worth telling.
Schenk and I sat down for a phone conversation on restorative justice in church settings. He thinks Christian leaders need to rethink decision-making—and conflict—in their congregations, and why "thinking restoratively" is at the heart of the gospel.
Paul: Give me some background first. What is restorative justice?
Restorative justice focuses on building and strengthening relationships in a community—especially after harm has been done.
Bruce: In a general sense, restorative justice focuses on building and strengthening relationships in a community—especially after harm has been done. I first became aware of it while working as a chaplain with young offenders. I've worked in the area of restorative justice for at least fifteen years within that justice context. I was involved in international practices probably about fourteen, fifteen years ago as well.
Fundamentally, it's about how people create communities that are connected, where people are open with one another, where there's a sense of trust and relationship. It's a way of doing justice that focuses on the relationships of a situation. It leads to healthier, more effective communities. The whole restorative movement is grounded in a First Nations understanding of community, and it's been used to great effect in the prison and national justice systems, both in Canada and the U.S.
The restorative piece comes into play when harm is done by or to a community member. How do we bring people together to repair that harm in ways that are safe, and enable people to move on? The focus is on building on strong values and strengthening relationships at all levels. It's not soft or easy. It holds people accountable and (hopefully) leads in the end to an outcome that's bigger than just retribution or punishment.
The process prompts restorative questions. Here's a general overview:
- Instead of asking: Why did this happen? The why is not as important as having people have a chance to talk about what happened.
- What did we think about when we heard about what happened?
- How have you and others been affected by this? So that's for the person who's been affected.
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For the person who's caused a negative impact
- How do you see it?
- How do you think people are affected by that?
- Who's been affected and how?
- How can we make things right? How can we move on, hopefully repair things as much as we can?
OK. How does this apply to churches?
As pastors, we often don't focus enough on fostering honest community relationships. We need to understand the ways that our actions affect one another, but many ministries do not know how to encourage that understanding. It just happens, or it doesn't.
Leadership needs to intentionally foster dialogue and help people build relationships. The relationship level is the place to deal with conflict and harm in churches. We need to invite people back into a notion of the community as a circle.
I think the circle is an experience. What that experience does for people is it either trains or retrains them to really listen, because if you're sitting in a circle process people are truly listening and giving people a voice space, a space for their voice to be heard, and people are really taking it in. When I do circle training with people they find it challenging to not jump in, and put their two cents worth in. So it takes some kind of reeducating. We're going to sit and really listen to each other speak. That's also something that obviously is part of the traditional First Nation way of relating.
If we can really listen to each other, then we also hear each other at a deeper level and it creates a context of respect.
I think that's a critical part. If we can really listen to each other, then we also hear each other at a deeper level and it creates a context of respect. One thing you could say about this framework is that it's grounded in Socratic thought, using the circle process where people go around and each person shares their answers to the questions. We use a lot of questions and I think different answers come out of the solutions. This creates more of a community understanding of how we deal with things. The role of the leader is to effectively facilitate that happening. They can say this is what we need to take into account but the group then would have some dialogue around that.
The other thing that really strikes me is how the circle is not meant to keep people out. When people want to join the circle, the circle opens up and expands to bring them in. So it's not meant to be exclusive, but, rather, it's meant to be inclusive. I think too often in our church history we operated pretty exclusively or at least not without the same kind of openness that Jesus calls us to do.
In the church that I attend we use a lot of circles for decision making. When tough decisions need to be made we have trained facilitators who would meet with fifty people in a congregational meeting, but they might be in groups of six or eight, where everybody has the same questions. Everybody uses this kind of process to hear one another in this small group, and then the ideas are shared. And we often reach not necessarily consensus but an understanding of what needs to happen as we move forward.
Why does this process compel you as a Christian leader?
The restorative leader is one who, works with people, has clear and high expectations of people but also provides much support.
Well, I think first of all, it is grounded in the way I understand Christ's love of relationships. One of the ways we understand leadership is a leader doesn't do things to people or for people but, rather, with people. The restorative leader is one who, works with people, has clear and high expectations of people but also provides much support. The way I would describe it is, a leader who is firm and fair. This leader challenges people but also nurtures and provides ways that people are supported to do what they need to do. I see Jesus doing a lot of that in Scripture, and being a servant-leader as well. I think there's a big connection.
Ultimately, it's not about the leader; it's about the facilitating. The leader really is a facilitator of good things happening, effective things happening, or ministry occurring. The leader needs to get out of the way, but this doesn't mean that there isn't a critical role for leaders. So when this approach was working in a school, congregation, or community, it's working only because you have effective leaders. Leadership is critical, but it needs to be of that "working with" kind of leadership.
The second one is, as a Lutheran pastor I very much believe in the whole idea of justification by grace through faith. That certainly doesn't mean we don't have the law or the whole expectation of what it means to do good things with the right thing. But it also reminds us when we fail that if it's a grace-based approach to things then that's more in line with how it should be. So the use of punitive or adversarial ways that tend to hurt or destroy people is out of line with what I understand as the essence of grace and faith. That's why I'm saying firm and fair. It's like when you walk into a classroom where you really know that the teacher's clearly the authority in the room. They're authoritative not authoritarian. There's high expectations about what we expect will happen here. At the same time I'm going to provide you with the support and love you need to be successful.
And the other thing that compels me around this is Paul's words in 2 Corinthians about us being involved and called to a ministry of reconciliation, because of our own reconciliation through Christ. Whether it's in an obvious faith context or not, I think we still need to be involved in that kind of ministry of reconciliation where we're bringing people together to do that kind of work. I think we're far more effective and we're far more able to do that work when the focus is on this restorative way of thinking and being as a community. If we're operating under a framework then it's easier for us to be on the same page, because a framework provides that structure and the values that ground that framework. The Christians values are clearly the same as restorative values, in my view, or at least there are huge connections. It takes us back to that place so we know that when we're sitting down and having this difficult conversation, if it's grounded in this way of thinking and being, then the way we respond makes more sense.
How has your church implemented a restorative model?
I will give you one example where we used this approach to make a decision. It seems minor at first, but we had to choose what to do with our parsonage. We were between pastors, and there was debate whether we should sell it. Of course it's a contentious issue. Some thought we should keep it. Others thought we should sell.
The typical way of deciding would be a congregational meeting where the loudest voices get heard. You know how that goes. Instead, we used the circle process I just described.
After church one Sunday, we would have facilitators sit at tables with six or eight people. We asked the congregation a few prepared questions, asking them to focus on the concept of what our parsonage was intended for, and then to share their vision or ideas about what we should do with it at this juncture. At the end of each round of three-question go around, each table shared their answers. At the end there was a sense that we needed to do some further study into details, and then come for further conversation. Even though we didn't land on a quick answer, we had a sense of the way forward. Besides the parsonage, the process has led to some really healthy decisions. What's also been interesting is that people speak about knowing each other better and feeling more connected with the community life.
There's more of a sense of respect for each other by having these ways of sharing.
I want to address the skepticism that a lot of pastors will feel about this. This sounds wonderful when it's about the parsonage, but what about a sex abuse case, or some similar crime? Does restorative justice have the necessary strength to deal with major issues?
What restorative justice does is provide a forum for people to come together to have this conversation.
What restorative justice does is provide a forum for people to come together to have this conversation. That can take place either in the midst of a process to deal with something major or to move forward afterwards. It's obviously not going to replace legal process or church discipline process as such.
What's different about what we're talking about here is the building up of churches that choose to operate restoratively. This has to happen first before we can have those other kind of conversations—like the best way to deal with an abuser—in a meaningful way. People begin to see it as an alternative to what they already have.
And it's vital to bring expertise to bear here. It's not mediation where you just bring together the two aggrieved parties. When you're talking about a serious incident and you want to use this kind of approach you don't ever bring people together where there's risk of further harm being done. You need very serious preparation. You need to train co-facilitators in a serious situation. They would need to have a referral from a church body that is willing to look at this as part of an overall approach for justice and healing. And then to meet with the various parties to see whether they're willing to come together to talk about what's happened and what we can do to try to move forward. At that point you bring together who you could.
We understand that when harm is done it's like throwing a pebble in a pond—there's a ripple effect.
What's different in this conferencing approach is that you bring together those who are closest to an incident along with their support people. You involved their community overtly. You acknowledge that they're not just spectators. We understand that when harm is done it's like throwing a pebble in a pond—there's a ripple effect. I think the more serious the incident is, the more care has to be given to preparation.
You mentioned the First Nations connection. Does this connect to ways of thinking about community that our churches may have forgotten?
Yes, I think so. In a First Nations' understanding, community and justice are primarily about how we get relationships right. I think this is what Christ is about, too. We're all responsible to each other for a healthy community. We all have a place. We all have a role. Probably what Luther was trying to get at when he talked about we're a priesthood of all believers. We really need to not see ourselves as individuals coming together as a society or community; rather we're not all we can be without community. That's a First Nation understanding of what life is. It's grounded in community and in a relationship with Creator. It's all part of that. The way that gets expressed is in a circle.
For churches then, rather than saying we've dealt with this in this consequential way, our ultimate goal needs to be reconnection.
And I think the other is obviously around when harm is done or conflict occurs. In a First Nations' understanding, we want to talk about the impact on community. It's not just about who you've hurt and holding that person accountable in the eyes of the community but also providing a way for them to reconnect, because the worst kind of punishment or consequence would be disconnection from the community. For churches then, rather than saying we've dealt with this in this consequential way, our ultimate goal needs to be reconnection. Focus on how we actually bring people back in to be an effective part of this community, and they can follow what we're expecting of them in this community as well, in terms of behavior.
Paul Pastor is associate editor of Leadership Journal and PARSE.
