Geoff and Sherry Maddock - Lexington, KY
Children: Isaac
Ministry Description: As residents of an inner-city, African American neighborhood in Lexington, our lives are centered on seeking the Kingdom in this place. In 1998, we helped start a small missional church called Communality. Serving as pastors and teachers, we have participated in the life of this community of faith for more than 10 years. At a fundamental level, however, we live and work as missionaries, tethered to the church with an orientation outward in the world. Our passions and gifts lie in outreach and hospitality in our neighborhood. Building relationships across cultural and socio-economic boundaries is foundational to our vocation and our day-to-day lives. In addition to place-based community work in the East End of Lexington, we assist in refugee resettlement, advocacy for the poor in our city, racial reconciliation, creation care through community gardens, and mentoring young Christian leaders and Asbury Theological Seminary students. We finished our studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in 2001 with master's degrees in Missions and Evangelism. Since that time, we have raised support to work as full-time missionaries with Communality.
As missionaries, we are seeking the welfare of the city (Jer. 29) by loving the marginalized and lost. We are committed to sharing the good news of Jesus by inhabiting the Kingdom of God in our community and equipping the saints for God's service. Some of the most recent work has been to establish a community garden and an urban orchard in our neighborhood and to formalize an internship program (www.placedpeople.org).
We cherish our relationship with RiverStone. Sherry (formerly Espy) grew up under the leadership and preaching of Charles Sineath and Tom Tanner and First United Methodist Church, Marietta. We have had the pleasure of hosting RiverStone mission teams in the past and regularly visit Marietta to meet with family and supporters to share with God is doing in Lexington.
Email: geoffandsherry@yahoo.com
