The Journey: Forgiveness, Restorative Justice and Reconciliation

The 2011 School of Christian Mission book is now available for purchase at the United Methodist Women’s online store.  Written by the Co-Executive Directors of JustPeace, Stephanie Hixon and Thomas Porter, the Spiritual Growth study book, The Journey: Forgiveness, Restorative Justice and Reconciliation, deals with the theme of how individuals, families, and communities are called to a life long journey of practicing forgiveness, justice, and reconciliation in our relational lives.

The Journey: Forgiveness, Restorative Justice and Reconciliation shows us the redemptive power of forgiveness: forgiveness for the victim, the perpetrator and the entire community.  The study intertwines stories from the Bible and recent history to illustrate the redemptive power of forgiveness.

Exploring biblical examples from the Prodigal, from the Jerusalem Council uniting Jews and Gentiles, and from Jesus himself, whose forgiveness of the betrayal leading to the brutal death has left a poignant roadmap for how we all should live, the study threads stories from recent history, from South Africa to Southeast Asia, Ireland to New Zealand, Liberia to Pennsylvania, showing how communities and individuals have tried hard to come out on the side of forgiveness and restorative justice.

The Journey includes with the text a study guide that takes restorative justice from spiritual concept to tangible, practical life skill.

Only by practicing forgiveness, justice and reconciliation can we end the cycles of retribution and violence.  With the Bible as our guide, together in community we can work for reconciliation and shalom.  The Journey is a first step toward changing your life and the world.

Supplemental Video Resources

We have compiled some multimedia resources to help enhance the small group study experience of The Journey.  In order to bring the stories of forgiveness and reconciliation that were shared in the book to life, and provide real faces of the people discussed, we have chosen several videos that can be found online that we think would be helpful to watch when studying these themes.

The videos are organized by chapter.  Click on the chapter to see the videos we have included.

[Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6] [Chapter 7] [Chapter 8]

The Circle Process

In the introduction of The Journey, we recommend that small groups utilize the circle process during bible study.  In addition to the description of the circle process in The Journey’s introduction, we thought the following resources might be helpful.

THE CIRCLE PROCESS AS PRACTICED IN FAITH – BY TOM PORTER (.PDF)