Hello. My name is Geoff Maddock and I serve as a missiologist with Baptist Mission Australia and Director of the Intercultural Learning Network. It is a role I hold with a great deal of gratitude.
Before coming to this work my wife, Sherry, and I spent nearly two decades in a historic African American neighbourhood in Lexington, Kentucky. There, in the ordinary work of neighbourliness and the pursuit of justice, I learned lessons that stay with me today: that transformation is slow, that it is local and that it belongs first to the communities living it. I also became aware of the significance, legacy and power of history, scholarship and education for those participating in the Mission of God.
Those years formed my conviction that the good news always becomes real in particular places, among particular people, through relationships of mutuality, humility and trust. I continue to approach my work with the instincts of a social anthropologist and, I confess, the eye of a photographer – always attentive to the detail and dignity of a given place.
Much of my present work involves walking alongside our organisation’s stakeholders as well as colleges, seminaries and Christian leaders across Asia and Africa. I endeavour to learn continually and share resources that help illuminate the challenges and opportunities that are emerging in this era. In recent years I have spent time with faculty and students at Kawthoolei Hope Theological Seminary along the Thai–Burma border, where emerging leaders are trained amid conflict and displacement.
In addition, I have gathered with faculty and students from North East India (from seminaries such as the Shalom Institute in Assam) as well as encouraging faithful leaders training pastors in places like Kenya and Zimbabwe. What I encounter in these relationships is vision and capacity in search of friendship and collaboration. I meet local leaders of remarkable gifting who are already bearing the weight of God’s work in their own communities who have much to teach me about dedicated leadership formation.
Training and education have always been part of Baptist Mission Australia’s story, and the Intercultural Learning Network is a continuation of that long history. I am humbled to build on the faithful work of colleagues such as Roger Kemp, Ros Gooden and Susan Campbell, not to mention the diverse peoples and places that have informed and improved the global witness of Baptist Mission Australia.
The Intercultural Learning Network exists to serve these opportunities. I understand ILN as connective tissue for a global movement – a means of linking people and resources so that insight and wisdom are exchanged in every direction, from everywhere to everywhere.
For too long, the conversation shaping global mission has been carried by too few voices. My deepest hope for this network is that it might help redress that imbalance: decentralising power, honouring local, contextual leadership and amplifying the profound wisdom of Global South Christianity for a new generation of leaders.
I invite you to take a future look at the Intercultural Learning Network page. Whether you come as an emerging leader, an experienced practitioner, or simply an interested friend, I warmly invite you to explore what we are learning together and to consider your own place within it.
