Sara: “Learning alongside incarcerated people has taught me restorative justice”

Sara Woody MARJM ’25

Hometown

Chicago

About Me

I love learning more about the Old Testament because it adds so much context and nuance to what we experience of Jesus.

I am so beyond grateful for the education I’ve received behind bars—the School of Restorative Arts has been transformative.

I have a full plate — working full time, mom to an 18 month old, and very involved in my local church and neighborhood.

My Seminary Experience

All of the classes I was able to take at Stateville Correctional Center were transformative, but the one I will most treasure is the week I spent getting trained as a Circle Keeper. We got to learn valuable, tangible skills about how to embody restorative justice in our communities, and I got to learn alongside incarcerated men.

My Future

Our church has a non-profit that we operate. I have been so inspired to see how our church, and by extension that non-profit, have seen the Gospel as a motivation to pursue justice. I would love to use the training I’ve received in Seminary to lead non-profits like this, or to at the very least come alongside these organizations and help them embody a justice that flows from the hands and feet of Christ.

When I started Seminary six years ago, I had no idea we would encounter a global pandemic, that I would switch careers, that I would have a child … but my Seminary education has been such an anchor in this whirlwind. I was carried financially in part through donor-funded scholarships, and the North Park seminary community saved my faith from the brink and offered a safe haven for me to get away with Jesus.