As a teenager and young adult, Jamie experienced abuse that is so common for young women. After a battle with depression and a brush with death as a young adult, she surrendered her life to obey God’s calling again felt a “call” to go overseas.

As a young couple, she and her husband, John, served as missionaries in Taiwan among the Hakka and Taiwanese. Jamie speaks with honesty about the difficulties of life on the mission field, harsh conditions, culture shock and her own emotional baggage that made everything in life more challenging.

In 1993, they co-founded a missionary training and sending organization and directed that organization for twenty-two years. They have trained over 300 missionaries many of whom have gone to North Africa, China, and India. Jamie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics and taught missionaries how to learn another language. She authored a book called Simple Obsession: Enjoying the Tender Heart of God, a memoir about intimate relationship with Jesus and learning to hear God’s voice. 

Then, in the midst of a faith crisis that caused Jamie to question everything she had believed, she opened a coffee shop called Joe’s Addiction in a “red light” district of Oklahoma City. Jamie is the lead pastor of this community among the economically poor, many of whom are experiencing homelessness, addiction, and abuse. They are learning together how to live the Way of Love.

Jamie is passionate to see Communities of the Hope (what Jesus called the Kingdom of God and Martin Luther King Jr. called Beloved Community) spread to every place where suffering and despair overwhelm. Jamie travels widely, teaching, speaking, holding seminars, and inviting more people to enter into this Dream of God for the world. She and John have five biological children, and many more who call Jamie, "Mama." "Mimi" is her favorite title though, given to her by her one granddaughter.

What do you do when your faith no longer makes sense, when everything you thought you believed falls apart?

After twenty years in ministry, Christianity suddenly was no longer working for Jamie Zumwalt. In the midst of this crisis, she opened Joe’s Addiction, a coffee shop, to conduct a Grand Experiment: 

• Is it possible to live what Jesus taught—giving to those who ask, caring for the poor, forgiving and loving your enemies? 

• And if possible, can it transform not only individuals, but an entire community? 

Experience a red light district plagued by poverty and violence, as Jamie weaves her own story of overcoming sexual abuse, shyness, and judgmental religion with the stories of those living on the margins. From giant, tattooed gang enforcer, Forklift, to little Mary, the sex worker, we learn the patience necessary to fight despair and restore hope to men and women experiencing homelessness and addiction. Jamie challenges ideas about God and people and invites us to leave religion to follow the Way of Love, creating a Community of Hope that becomes a little taste of heaven, here on earth. 

Enjoying the Tender Heart of God

"In this simple book the great truths of God are available as the sweetest morsels. Like a spring of refreshing, this amazing book has given life to my spirit."

—Dr. Thomas R. Sattler, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy, Retired, Morehead State University

When you are in the zone, everything peripheral blurs and fades, leaving only the object of your attention. You might be an athlete in your finest moment, a gunfighter on an old Tucson street, a virtuoso exulting in the music, an artist absorbed in the next stroke... a follower of Jesus, brilliantly consumed by the beauty of the One. There is a vast difference between knowing about God and knowing God. We can spend hours in church- attending worship services, participating in outreach ministries, teaching Sunday School, hosting small group meetings- spending ourselves in service to the Lord. Yet in the midst of all the activity, it is possible for us to remain void of relationship and intimacy with Him. The more we strive, the more God seems to be an impersonal, mystical, distant being. Many of us sense that something is missing and woefully inadequate in our spiritual pilgrimages. We see others leaving the church and the faith, as their excitement and passion for Jesus wanes all too often because we have perpetuated the lie of church-ianity, seeking relationship through ritual. We have lost our simple obsession, the grand, wholehearted, unifying pursuit that becomes our center of life. Speaking from her own experiences as a fellow journeyer, Jesus-follower and missionary trainer, Jamie paints an honest picture of her own search for a meaningful, passionate, transformative relationship with God. Her insight into God's desires to be our closest friend, our compassionate father and our tender lover will soften and restore any heart. For all who are struggling or simply going through the motions, these pages will launch you into an exciting new level of reality with Jesus. This guide will show you the way out of unfruitful religious wastelands and into abundant life with your simple obsession.