A New “GRAND” Paradigm We may feel stuck, but we don’t need to stay there. We’re going to revisit each of the attitudes and working assumptions of the dominant paradigm and look at them through the lenses of both the broader biblical witness and recent criminological research on desistance from crime. In the process, we’ll be ad- vocating for a new paradigm for reentry ministry, a mental reordering, a re- framing of how we see (a) justice, (b) those returning home, and (c) the shape of ministry. We’ll use the acronym “GRAND” to describe this new paradigm, which we see as more biblical, more faithful, more hopeful, more balanced, and more effective than what we’ve been working with. Here, in a nutshell, are the five building blocks of this GRAND new paradigm. G race-motivated R estoration-framed A sset-based
N etwork-implemented D esistance-informed
Grace-motivated. At the heart of the Christian message, experience, and identity stands Jesus Christ. And at the heart of Jesus Christ stands the victo- ry of God’s grace. Grace is the foundation and bedrock on which everything else is built. Everything Jesus ever revealed in his teaching and by his cross is grace—us getting wonderful things we don’t deserve, and God absorbing the awful consequences we do deserve. Grace flips karma and just desserts on their head. Grace is about God having a soft spot for failures and losers and screw-ups and sinners and addicts and convicts, for all of us who find our- selves on the bottom, and for all of us who put ourselves on the bottom. Grace is God’s “just because” love. Grace is also God’s merciful “Nevertheless” that follows God’s holy “No.” Grace is love that won’t stop, that won’t let go, that’s always on the lookout for the prodigal on the way home. Grace isn’t cheap, though, because God’s holiness calls us to shalom, to right relationship, to repent and “go and sin no more.” We’re all recipients of God’s grace because we’re all offenders and law-breakers and disturbers of God’s peace. We can see stories of this grace in action in Jesus’ response to the woman caught in adultery, in his invitation to the pred- atory tax collector Zacchaeus, in his parable about the unforgiving servant, in the story of the Prodigal Son, and in many, many other places in the gospels. In every one of these situations, Jesus is not only demonstrating grace, he’s commanding it. He’s leading his followers into a way of life that’s grace-moti- vated and grace-suffused.
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