Join the Mend the World Movement
A community of peacemakers engaging with the Church and Oklahoma City in order to seek truth, repair, healing, and the common good.
About Mend
Our vision centers on truth, restorative justice, and repair. We draw profound inspiration from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which restores broken pottery with gold. As in Kintsugi, we do not ignore or discard the history of our brokenness. We address societal fractures through the golden threads of truth-telling, empathy, and compassion. Our mission is to cultivate safe spaces where open and honest dialogue fosters understanding, repair, and restorative justice. We envision an Oklahoma City where every individual and community member is heard, seen, cared for, and equipped to flourish.
“Let us create the social space that brings Truth, Mercy, Justice, and Peace together within a conflicted group or setting. Then energies are crystallized that create deeper understanding and unexpected new paths, leading toward restoration and reconciliation.” ― John Paul Lederach
Mend Initiatives
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Mend Peacemaker Cohort 2024
Mend is driven to nurture, empower, and stand alongside individuals and organizations that are actively healing our city and nurturing communal life—the Mend Peacemaker Cohort begins in April 2024. We are gathering ten diverse leaders who are focusing on addressing the profound fractures in our public life. Each cohort member is committed to embodying and inspiring wisdom, moral courage, and social creativity in the ongoing, multi-generational work of truth and repair, restorative justice, and human flourishing.
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Chrysalis Pilgrimages & Retreats
The Chrysalis Retreat gathers social healing practitioners for a time of reflection, rejuvenation, and space to dream for the healing and flourishing of the whole city. This retreat, nestled in a serene setting, emphasizes the profound connection between rest and restorative justice, allowing participants to recharge and gain fresh insights into restorative justice and peacemaking. Our Freedom and Justice Pilgrimage takes us to Montgomery, Alabama, where we'll visit the Equal Justice Initiative (eJI) and the Peace and Legacy Museum to immerse participants in the civil rights movement's legacy and gain a deeper understanding of the ongoing pursuit of justice and equality.
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Restorative Justice
Mend's restorative justice work and advocacy take a comprehensive approach to drive transformative change in Oklahoma's legal system through grassroots efforts and public policy. We collaborate with justice-involved individuals, policy experts, and community shareholders to set clear goals, engage in legislative processes, and focus efforts on targeted areas. We collaborate with those committed to justice reform, streamlining advocacy efforts and forging alliances across diverse groups. Our initiatives cover prevention, diversion, rehabilitation, and reintegration. We unite faith leaders, advocacy organizations, and various cohorts to pursue justice reform objectives collectively.