Who We Are

The Pro-Reconciliation and Anti-Racism Initiative was founded upon the need to make visible God’s beloved community. It invites the church to listen to the once silenced voices of its racial and ethnic communities, learn from their wisdom and gain insight from their leadership. It calls the church to discern, pray, study, reflect, dialogue and fellowship. The true goal is to transform, strengthen and deepen the church’s spirituality, resulting in a community that understands its mission to be about bringing justice and salvation to the world.

Read more about the history of Reconciliation Ministry

Reconciliation Ministry Commission

Rev. April G. Johnson serves as the Minister of Reconciliation for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada. She brings to this work a deep passion for racial understanding, justice and compassion. As Minister of Reconciliation, Rev. Johnson facilitates the church-wide process of awareness, analysis and action toward healing the fractures in the body of Christ that are caused by systemic racism. She collaborates with organizer trainers, regional and congregational staff leadership, anti-racism teams and ecumenical partners in her efforts to guide this work. Rev. Johnson has added mediation to the toolbox of Anti-Racism skills and practices in the church’s pursuit to embody a Pro-Reconciling identity. In her capacity as both pastor and administrator, Rev. Johnson emphasizes the importance of building relationships across differences as one of the critical ways that we actualize God’s plan for humanity and creation.

Before coming to the Disciples’ Center, Rev. Johnson served at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois as Assistant Dean of Students /Director of Diversity Services and as Associate College Chaplain. During her tenure at the College, Rev. Johnson provided leadership in developing a campus climate of welcome and inclusion. She also led several cross-cultural short-term service-learning opportunities for students in Belize, Central America and Kenya, East Africa. It was the joy of her ministry at the College to accompany young adults as they discovered their global connectedness and as they enhanced their intercultural competencies.

She received her Bachelors of Arts from the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana and her Masters of Divinity from Howard University in Washington, DC. While at Howard, she was the Assistant to the Editor for the Journal of Religious Thought and the editor of the school’s weekly student-staff newsletter-The Weekly Word. She enjoys writing, travel and is hopeful to return to playing golf. Rev. Johnson is a native of Chicago, Illinois.