When the Good News Sounds Like Good News Again

Hey friends,

Last time around the campfire we talked about why many NOMADs and NO-ADs instinctively struggle with what most of us call “church.”

As I’ve said, I do not think we should be quick to judge them as somehow resistant to Jesus.

I do think it is because, what many people hear today when they hear the word “church”, often sounds very different from the relational, mobility-aware world of Scripture.

So here’s where things can begin to change.

When people begin rediscovering the shepherding, relational, gathered-community world of the Bible… something beautiful starts happening.

The Good News starts sounding like… Good News again.

And I think this may help explain something very important.

Nomads did not originally resist Jesus at all.

Rather, they instinctively recognized Him, like sheep yearning for their shepherd’s voice!

They did not recognize him as the founder of a religious institution.

They recognized him as the Good Shepherd.

And that image is far deeper than most of us seem to realize.

I’m afraid that for most of us, shepherd imagery has become… sentimental.

A stained-glass window.

A children’s storybook.

A peaceful painting hanging on a wall.

But for pastoral peoples, shepherding is not decorative imagery.

It is survival.

A shepherd knows where water is.

A shepherd leads through danger.

A shepherd understands movement, seasons, relationships, and responsibility.

A shepherd lives with and walks among the flock.

And the flock learns the shepherd’s voice because, well, they talk with each other a lot. I’ve walked with them across the Himalayas and camped with them in Kyrgyzstan, and Senegal, and Ethiopia. They listen for each other’s voice, the noises that they make. They even know what each other smells like. They know when a voice has gone missing. Their lives depend on it.

That is not abstract authority.

That is relational leadership grounded in presence, trust, protection, and care.

Now suddenly Jesus’ words begin sounding very different.

“I am the Good Shepherd.”

This is no mere theological statement.

It is a lived statement.

It is a relational statement.

A statement people in pastoral societies immediately understood.

And maybe that is part of why so many nomadic peoples initially resonated so deeply with Jesus and the early movement around Him.

Jesus did not enter history as a distant institutional manager, bureaucrat, or CEO.

He came as the Shepherd who walks with His people.

And the world of Scripture already understood shepherding.

Not just the people of Israel.

Across the Middle East and, well, globally, most people understood:

guidance,

hospitality,

kinship,

mobility,

flocks,

water scarcity,

seasonal movement,

shared survival,

and relational responsibility.

The world of Scripture did not feel abstract to them.

It felt recognizable. It was “us”.

And again… I think most of us who read the text miss how alive these realities still are today. I know I did.

Sometimes I quietly smile — or… maybe cringe a little — when I hear pastors or teachers say things like:

“In ancient times shepherds used to…”

Or:

“Back then shepherds would…”

Or:

“Scholars tell us…”

Part of me wants to jump up and call out:

“They STILL do!”

Come with me to Africa.

Come with me to Asia.

Come with me to the Middle East.

In fact, come with me to Navajo country in Arizona!

There are still shepherds today leading flocks across difficult land.

Still families moving seasonally in search of grass and water.

Still communities built around kinship, mobility, hospitality, and survival.

These are not dead biblical images preserved only in museums or commentaries.

Large parts of the world still live much closer to the social world of Scripture than our own Western societies do.

And once you begin seeing that… Jesus’ words start sounding less like distant religious poetry and more like lived reality again.

A few years ago some friends gave me Kenneth Bailey’s book The Good Shepherd for my birthday.

They already knew it would resonate deeply with me.

Later I found some of Shepherd Bailey’s teachings online, and near the end of one of them he said something that stayed with me.

He said, in essence, that he was on a mission to help recover the biblical theme of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

And when I heard that… something inside me said:

“Yes. Me too.”

I hope you hear me clearly. The shepherding theme was never meant to be sentimental. It’s not just a greeting card or a meme.

I think many people — especially NOMADs and NO-ADs — are longing to rediscover Jesus in ways that actually sound like life again.

He’s not some distant, ancient religious figure…

He is the Shepherd who walks with His people.

When we slow down and look carefully at Scripture, we begin noticing that this shepherding, relational, gathered-people world runs all the way through the Bible.

From Genesis to Revelation, God keeps meeting people in motion.

Abraham moves with flocks, servants, alliances, and extended household networks.

Israel carries the tabernacle, this elaborate faith community mobile tent complex, all around the Sinai and then to various places in the promised land up until the building of the Temple in Solomon’s time!

Tell me, which of the prophets don’t speak through shepherding imagery?

And then we get to Jesus.

Jesus gathers disciples while walking roads, eating in homes, crossing regions, and speaking and sleeping in open places.

In 2010 when we completed the Jesus Film dubbing in our Asian mountain “Shepherdeze” language, the people exclaimed, “Wow, Jesus and his disciples were just like us!”

That 1st Century Jesus movement spread through households, hospitality networks, trade routes, and traveling teams.

“Church”

And even the language used for the gathered people of God points in this direction.

Most people today hear the word “church” and immediately think of a building or institution.

But the New Testament word ekklesia had nothing to do with a building.

It meant an assembly.

A gathered people.

A community with shared belonging and participation.

And here’s something many people do not realize:

both ekklesia “assembly” and synagogue “congregation” are Greek words.

We often treat one as “Christian” and the other as “Jewish,” but both originally pointed to gathered communities, not buildings.

Not isolated individuals attending religious events.

Gathered people.

Inter-related communities.

Households.

Families.

Networks of families.

People who belonged to one another.

Exclusion?

And this becomes even more striking when you realize that in the Greek world an ekklesia was originally an assembly of recognized citizens who had a voice in the affairs of their people.

But many people were excluded from those assemblies:

slaves,

outsiders,

conquered peoples,

those who had been absorbed into the empire but were still without recognized citizenship. They were not allowed to participate meaningfully in official meetings discussing the fate of their own neighborhood.

And then the Good News comes along and says:

the Shepherd is gathering a new people.

A people where belonging is no longer limited to the socially recognized and powerful.

A gathered flock under the care of a Shepherd who is very good.

I think this is part of the beauty that so many nomads originally recognized.

Jesus was not simply inviting isolated individuals into private spirituality.

He was gathering a people.

A flock.

A living community learning to hear the Shepherd’s voice together.

Have we gone astray?

So I’m afraid somewhere along the way, like sheep, each of us got distracted, we turned each to our own way. We’ve wandered from our first love.

As I said last episode, over time Christianity became increasingly shaped by settled empires, institutions, buildings, and eventually by highly individualistic modern cultures.

And as this happened, NOMADs gradually stopped seeing themselves inside the biblical account at all.

Christianity began sounding foreign.

Settled.

Imported.

Even, imposed.

Disconnected from their social world.

Can nomads understand Scripture?

So again, I think the deeper problem is not that nomads cannot understand Scripture. They certainly can!

I’m concerned that modern Christianity often no longer sounds like the world Scripture itself assumes.

What about us?

And I’m convinced that this matters for more than just nomads.

Because many people in modern WEIRD societies are also exhausted.

I’ve heard it said that there is a loneliness epidemic.

Our society has never been so fragmented.

We are somehow all digitally connected but relationally we’re completely disconnected.

Many people today are starving for belonging.

They want community but often encounter programs.

They want relationship but experience bureaucracy.

They want shared life but find… individualism.

So where is the Good News?

Is any of this sounding familiar?

Painfully.  A dear shepherd friend in Asia once told me, “Ron, you are so concerned about education programs, health programs, micro-enterprise programs. But all we really want… is you.”

So here is good news! I think this is why many are once again beginning to gravitate back to these older biblical images.

It is not because they want to romanticize nomads.

But because they are longing for something more human.

More relational.

More connected.

More recognizable as life together.

This is where I think we need to rethink how we imagine the gathered people of God.

Our task is not simply importing prefabricated religious systems everywhere.

It is learning once again how communities of Jesus can form naturally within the relational worlds people already inhabit.

Not abandoning Scripture but returning to it.

Not abandoning fellowship but deepening it.

Not abandoning gathered worship but transforming it.

We are rediscovering ways of following Jesus that move with people instead of demanding people first abandon everything recognizable about their social world.

Church on a camel

In one of our Nomadic Peoples Network gatherings, a Tuareg brother said something unforgettable.

He said:

“A church on a camel must be light, simple, easy to carry.”

I love that image.

Because maybe the gathered people of God were never meant to feel primarily heavy, rigid, or immovable.

Maybe the people of the Shepherd were always meant to move together.

And maybe that is why the Good News once spread so powerfully through households, roads, camps, caravans, hospitality networks, and extended families.

Not because people first mastered institutional systems.

But because they encountered the Shepherd.

And when that happens… something beautiful begins to reappear.

The Good News starts sounding like Good News again.

Thanks for joining me around the campfire today.

And until next time…

keep moving,

keep listening,

and let nomads move you. 🤠

oh, and before you go, please leave a comment below. If we’re in this journey together we need to hear from each other. I need to hear from you!