A winning method of spreading the good news
 Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight looks at how living outwardly fruitful lives helps us spread the good news successfully.
This is the third part in the Spreading the Good News series - A Winning Method All Round
When I first began to write down ideas about how we can spread the good news with great success and effectiveness, I felt the urge to share with you my view that the methods for success in ‘spreading the good news’ are not much different to the methods for success in, say, ‘being a good Christian’ or ‘having a successful church’ - that is to say, there seems to be a significant commonality in achieving success throughout the Christian journey, whether it be preaching, witnessing, building friendships and relationships, growing oneself, or helping others to grow - all of these tenets are underpinned by a strong and constant quality, which could be summarised as a ‘message of love’.
Christianity is about a ‘message of love’, it is not about ‘cliques’ or ‘coteries’ or ‘factions’ or ‘in-groups’ or ‘division’ or ‘ostracism’ or ‘exclusiveness’ or ‘separation’ or ‘sententiousness’ or ‘my way or the wrong way’ - and whenever any of these things filtrate into the ‘message’ you can be sure that some of its ‘love’ will be (at best) under threat and (at worst) lost in translation. And if Christianity is about a ‘message of love’ over anything else, we should expect to find that any qualities encapsulated in this ‘message of love’ should be thematically common in each aspect of Christianity itself, whether it be ‘Spreading the good news’, ‘Being a good Christian’ or ‘Having a successful church’ - and I think we find that this is the case. Let me give you a good example. If I were to jot down fifteen essential points for having a successful church (remember the church is not a building, it is the people) my list would be as follows (in no particular order):
A successful church must have…
- A message that can inform and change lives.
- A compassionate heart for people and enthusiasm in helping them grow.
- The ability to help others build a strong relationship with God and with others.
- A passionate enthusiasm for fellow humans and the right attitude towards others’ situations.
- The ability to see situations through someone else’s eyes and meet people where they are at.
- Inspiration for impact.
- A passion to meet the needs of others.
- The ability to make a person feel loved and cared for.
- Focus and dedication.
- Positivity in motivation and willingness to serve others.
- Leadership for growth without being controlling.
- An ability to relate Christianity to everyday life with respect to improvement.
- A strategy for making a difference.
- Flexibility, dedication and purposefulness.
- (and most importantly of all) An abundance of love, grace, wisdom, and kindness.
Now replace ‘A successful church must have…’ with ‘A successful Christian must have…’ or ‘A successful spreader of the good news must have…’ and have another look at the list; you will see that the fifteen qualities applicable to the church have the same applicability when applying to the Christian or the spreader of the good news. Once one sees Christianity as a ‘message of love’ he or she will be able to take the above list and apply it to all of the important aspects of Christian growth, including, for the purposes of this series, a positive plan to help become a successful spreader of the good news and explicator of the Christian faith.
Creating a good impression
 All this has practical importance for one essential reason; whenever we fall short in meeting these goals we shall have a negative effect on what would otherwise be positive outcomes. I am not saying this to add pressure or to suggest that we won’t fail or let ourselves down - I am simply saying this to make us mindful of creating good impressions and having a pre-prepared strategic outlook for doing so. All we are doing is highlighting why those who profess to know the good news of Christ must try their very best to show the fruits of the tree at all times. It is incredibly difficult, but of practical relevance; for the bad fruits on the good tree are significant (albeit excessive) factors in putting men and women off Christianity. Weeks of good philosophical argument and kind outward reaching can be ruined by one public solecism or one perennial act of ungodliness. When we behave this way, we are, in one sense, seducing them into rejecting our beliefs. Every fruit of our tree that is visibly bad or rotten, is equally a temptation for the listener to ignore or disregard our claims, even if they profess agreement in what we happen to be saying at the time. Thus, in that sense, it is like a seduction.
Whenever we have behaved in a way that tarnished our belief system and whenever we speak in a way that elicits negative feelings in others - we have tempted them into a devilish seduction. And any non-Christian reading this would think us all hypocrites if we did not admit right here that all of us do constantly let ourselves down and fail to live up to the standards God wishes for us. But persevere we must. Others will judge our actions, and thus the Christian faith will very often be judged by others, on what we say and do and how we conduct ourselves in everyday life. It is easier for us, we can repent of our bad action, but that does not mean that those who have been put off Christianity have repented of their denigration.
So what should we do when we have let ourselves down? Should we try not to do it again? Of course, but we will fail. We should keep trying, but also we should continue to be mindful of the effect we have on others. We would not be advised to avert our gaze from the real situation that those who have felt denigration towards us find themselves in. We can only change their situation by trying our hardest to change our own.
It is hard enough at the best of times to live in a manner which is pleasing to God, if we could do it at all times, grace would not be grace. But under the consuming pressures of being godly, we find that the harder we try the easier it all becomes. And here we find that our Lord’s words ‘Do not judge or you too will be judged’ (Matthew 7:1) must come into the equation. If we are to be excused for our rotten fruits we must excuse the rotten fruits in others; for in doing this we see that grace received is also grace given and thus very often received again into a better understanding of Grace Himself. If we resent the bad actions of others, we inadvertently offer resentment back up to Him. When I say ‘excuse’ and ‘resent’ I do not mean that we are to look upon people’s badness and faults with equanimity; I mean that the badness and faults of others should not stand in the way of our loving them or encouraging them to get better.
And anyway, who are we to be judgmental? Perhaps our neighbour’s ungentlemanly behaviour was unintentional; perhaps our boss’s contemptible outburst was due to his or her emotional incapacity; perhaps the policy error by our Minister for Health was due to unwelcome external pressures; perhaps the worst faults in our partner’s personality are unconscious faults to which he or she is genuinely oblivious. It seems fair to say that the Divine blessings which we receive are intended to involve our continual search for mitigation in observing the faults of others. You can be sure that God sees not just the effect their rotten fruit has on us, but the effect that our rotten fruit has on them. That is why grace is always our best effort in producing better fruit.
And regarding this ‘mitigation’ I do not, of course, mean that we should like the rotten fruit, nor that we should condone bad actions by creating graceful mitigation - the existence of which we are very likely to remain doubtful about. Nor should we pursue justice to such a level that grace is forgotten - for even the mass murderers will cry for justice when you give them injustice. The leftist might resort to joining the opposite party of the right if he thinks he can get justice there. The man who was wronged might seek retribution without any regard for justice or rehabilitation. The commonality between all these thoughts and actions is that they so often leave out grace. But the man who first discovered the true nature of grace; the man who realises that grace itself is transcendent of justice and desert, feels the awe of the Divine like he feels the hot sunlight bursting through dark clouds. As soon as he abandons it, another cloud will come and cover up the sun. This is why, in this sense, as in every other sense, we are the light of the world. We only illuminate others by shining godly light into the dark. Thus any darkness in our behaviour is darkness in our character and thus, to the outside world, a cloud that blocks the light of Christ.
Despite the warnings in the second half of this message about creating the wrong impression, the positive elements in the first half are more than enough to set us on the right path in spreading the good news and glorifying Christ; for in fact, whenever we are reminded about the things that can go wrong, we know that with perseverance, tenacity and a great willingness to be the best Christians possible, we shall be able to achieve immeasurably more than we ever thought possible.
Next week we will look at ‘reaching out’ and ‘methods of communication’.
The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. We welcome your thoughts and comments, posted below, upon the ideas expressed here. You can also contact the author direct at james.knight@norfolk.gov.uk
James is a Norwich local government officer, author and Proclaimers church member in Norwich. You can access his current collections of columns here
Meanwhile, if you want to find out more about Christianity, visit: www.rejesus.co.uk
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