Release week for my new book, A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps, is April 27! Today, I’m sharing an excerpt from the introduction that describes why I wrote this book. (Hint: it’s because we really need what medieval maps can offer.)

This book, born from my studies and my groping, imperfect faith, is for every Christian who wants to see more of God in her world. I wrote it because sometimes we feel lost on our journey of faith: we need to pause, pull over to the side of the road, and reach for a map to guide us. In this book, I am going to suggest that we reach for the Hereford Map.

This map, which pictures the creation transformed by the presence of God, teaches us to find our place in the world. If we heed the map’s lessons, we can learn to see our ordinary lives inscribed in God’s plan of redemption that was set in place at the beginning of time. Our faith matters. So do our jobs, our struggles, and all the mundane hours that make up our days. They are an integral part of an incredible, Christ-centered world.

It is no small thing to find our spiritual journey written into the history of the world. It reassures those of us who feel lost or who want to deepen our faith beyond the Sunday school lessons we hear in church. “Perhaps somewhere in the subterranean chambers of your life you have heard the call to deeper, fuller living,” writes Richard Foster in his influential book on the spiritual life, Celebration of Discipline.[1]

Have you heard this call? Do you long to experience a deeper, more vibrant faith? A faith that matters? If so, medieval world maps are for you. They can help you to more fully live out your faith by showing you your place in the overarching story of creation, sin, and salvation. This is our story, but it is not one that we always hear. In an effort to be relevant to modern life, many churches today have cut themselves loose from history—the history of Christianity and the history of salvation itself. As a result, we have a heightened awareness of our story and our needs and a far dimmer grasp of the story God is telling about the world. Yet I can think of nothing more relevant than understanding our role in God’s divine plan. We are relevant—cherished, significant—to the creator of the universe. And we can learn to live as though we are.

We need the vision of history shown on medieval maps to deepen our sense of belonging in God’s world. We need the testimony of medieval Christians who help us learn to think about our faith this way. If we are overly worried about the question of relevance, we can bring the Hereford Map into the twenty-first century by comparing it to the maps we use all the time. Most of us would never dream of taking a journey, at least a long and complicated one, without the aid of a map. We rely on maps to show us where we are and to get us where we need to go. Shouldn’t we do the same on our spiritual journey?

But, come to think of it, most of us do not use “maps” at all. Gone are the days of wrestling with unwieldy paper creations that can never again be folded into their original form! Today we use positioning systems and devices, such as mobile apps and GPS units. We program and interact with them. Sometimes, we talk to them. Perhaps we can think of the Hereford Map as an app for our time. In this map, and others from the medieval era, we find a spiritual GPS for our journey with God. It is fully programmable, highly interactive, and will get us where we need to go. It will take us to the heart of our faith and help us to travel in a world centered on Jesus Christ.

[1] Richard J. Foster, A Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, 20th Anniversary Edition (New York: HarperSanFrancisco), 1998, 2.

You can buy A World Transformed here. Join me in releasing the book and celebrating the heritage of medieval maps!