She is the founding director of FutureChurch, an international group of Catholics affiliated with parishes focusing on full lay participation in the life of the Church, from which she stepped down in 2013.

[3] Her father, an insurance salesman, received the Purple Heart for his service in World War II, having spent 33 months in the Southwest Pacific.

During her first year, which was the 125th anniversary of the university, she attended a symposium featuring the Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng, the German Catholic Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, SJ, and American philosopher and Jesuit John Courtney Murray, SJ, an event that influenced her decision to study theology as well as nursing, and to pursue religious life.

She then acquired  community organizing skills while working for 2.5 years as an interfaith coordinator with the Philadelphia United Farm Workers union during the grape and lettuce boycotts.

[17] From 1984 to 1993 she worked with the Sanctuary Movement, and also with the Prenatal Investment Program (PNIP), a group trying to expand Medicaid to working-poor mothers and their children.

[21] Instead of merely holding these celebrations, the committee called for the return of priests who left the active ministry to marry, and for the ordination of women.

In 1990, Catholics from 16 faith communities gathered together to formally establish the FutureChurch coalition, electing both Schenk and Trivison as co-coordinators.

"[30] Schenk's religious congregation agreed to fund her full-time  ministry with FutureChurch for a three-year period, after which time the organization became self-sustaining.

[33][34] Under Schenk's leadership, FutureChurch soon partnered with Call To Action (CTA), which was then the largest Catholic reform organization in the United States, with many regional chapters.

[35] Using priest-shortage statistics from Schoenherr and Young, Schenk gave presentations to CTA regional chapters in scores of US dioceses.

[40] Schenk spent the next four years writing Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity, published by Fortress Press in 2017.

[46] She is also featured in the 2017 documentary produced by Viktoria Somogyi and Jeff MacIntyre, Foreclosing on Faith: America’s Church Closing Crisis.

It profiles Sr. Kate Kuenstler, PHJC whose advocacy as a canon lawyer changed Vatican policy regarding whether to close vibrant parishes simply to pay off church debts.