Embodied Reconciliation
Congregational Healing as Pastoral Care
- Church Leadership & Ministry
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2026
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Publisher's Description
Leanna K. Fuller notes that conflict is a pervasive feature of contemporary churches. Faith communities today face increasingly complex and difficult dynamics such as same-sex marriage, immigration, church-state relationships, and many more--both internally and in the surrounding culture. And congregants and pastoral leaders need resources to help them navigate the aftermath of such conflicts. Embodied Reconciliation responds by offering a set of practices to help congregations explore reconciliation as a form of communal pastoral care. Fuller presents an understanding of reconciliation that includes elements of forgiveness and accountability, emphasizes process rather than outcome, recognizes human dignity and differences, and acknowledges that God is the primary agent of transformation. She describes practices--truth-telling, grieving and lamenting, confessing and repenting, and blessing and releasing--that congregations can implement any time they experience conflict or tension. These practices, in turn, help congregations imagine how their faith communities might move toward embodying reconciliation. This book is ideal for leaders of faith communities, whether clergy or lay, who have varying levels of pastoral care experience--or no experience at all. Embodied Reconciliation can be used effectively in seminary classrooms as well as church leadership trainings.
Endorsements (4)
“Praise for Embodied Reconciliation Reconciliation is at the heart of the Christian story, yet conflict is a given in Christian community—from mundane differences of opinion in everyday church life to intractable polarities that create division, rupture relationships, and split congregations and denominations. In Embodied Reconciliation, Leanna K. Fuller comes alongside faith community leaders—lay and ordained—to guide the repair of relationships amid conflict and help communities heal through practices of reconciliation. Fuller revitalizes the reconciling function of pastoral care by infusing it into all the arts of ministry leadership. She offers congregations and their leaders a refreshing approach to the gifts of the Christian reconciliation tradition embodied in concrete acts of truth-telling, grieving and lamenting, confessing and repenting, blessing and releasing. Pastorally astute, practically oriented, and prescient for our era of increased polarization, Embodied Reconciliation is a gift to congregations.”
“What do forgiveness and reconciliation actually look like when they are enacted in human relationships and communities? Leanna K. Fuller’s nuanced book Embodied Reconciliation offers wisdom and practical advice for communities seeking healing across multiple levels, from interpersonal disagreements to complex divisions and polarizations. Focused on embodying process rather than fixed outcomes, attentive to suffering and oppression, and grounded in divine agency, Fuller transforms traditional approaches to reconciling congregations and the wider world through a web of pastoral care supporting the whole people of God. This book is a valuable resource for pastoral caregivers, clergy, activists, religious leaders, and all who seek corporate healing and reconciliation.”
“Leanna K. Fuller’s work provides sound guidance for congregations, especially in these conflicted times. Rather than avoid relational challenges, she invites us to care our way through the tensions of community toward healing and reconciliation.”
“Replace your management texts on conflict with this book’s reclamation of pastoral reconciliation. Leanna K. Fuller provides a wise, comprehensive, and practical guide to what’s at stake when we fight over faith. She refuses simplistic analysis of conflict and, most remarkably, offers a faithful road map to blessing and letting go when conflicts become intractable. Embodied Reconciliation is a true gem.”
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