Dream Awakener

Painting by Asian artist He Qi

A guest post by Geoff Maddock

This all sounds a bit hard. My first impulse is to desire the advent of some sophisticated theological, sociological, or missional framework that will put everything in order (once and for all!). Surely there is a way to skip the waiting and enable me to remain free to go wherever I want for as long as I please. My life in community with other fumbling Jesus-followers is teaching me something quite different. While theoretical frameworks are important they are much easier to engage than good, earthy spirituality – the kind of spirituality that has thirty years of anonymity as well as skin and breath and hair. Paying attention to culture and history by participating in the life of a place is the slow but necessary work of people of God. This kind of spirituality is the stuff of the Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven and it is what makes the story of the good Samaritan such an enduring and heroic tale, especially when it is married to the shalom imagery of Jeremiah 29.

So, as we aspire to be radically committed to the outrageous love typified by Jesus, may we find the courage to be committed for the long haul. May our good Samaritans go home to make households of faithfulness that grow deep roots. Our western, urban context has a fetish for the instant and the spectacular, for moments of ecstasy and the choice to go anywhere at any time (hyper-mobility). To prioritize fidelity to a place and its people (and not just an idea) is to truly nail our individualism to the cross. It may be the most radical thing we ever do.

Geoff makes his home in Lexington, KY, with his wife Sherry and their son Isaac. They work together to serve as missionaries, share in the life of their intentional community (communality), get jobs to pay the bills, and conspire with anyone longing for the love and justice Jesus embodies. Geoff and Sherry also share and learn with Forge America to help others develop the awareness and grace needed for mission in the Western context.