Thursday 7 May 2026

Psalm 41

Background
How would you describe the Christian good news? If someone with no background or familiarity with the Christian faith asked you what your religion was all about, how would you answer?

This is a question we wrestled with in a missional community I previously led in central London. We wanted to be a church community that was relevant to young adults who lived and worked across the city and came from a wide diversity of backgrounds. What would be our message? Or rather, how would we effectively communicate the message of Jesus?

To find an answer we looked through the various sermons that were preached in the book of Acts. And we especially contrasted Peter’s sermon in Jerusalem on Pentecost (Acts 2:14-41) with Paul’s sermon in Athens at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-31). They were preaching to very different audiences, and so had very different content. Peter traced through Jewish history and proclaimed Jesus as the prophesied Messiah, whereas Paul tried to draw on other cultural references relevant to his Greek audience. But both sermons ended with pointing people towards Jesus.

We concluded that both messages had in common this pointing towards Jesus, a proclamation that there was good news to be had, and a promise for us all of eternal life, due to his death and resurrection.

These same elements are also found in Paul’s message to the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:26-39). Here Paul was speaking to a Jewish audience, so he could follow more Peter's model of presenting Jesus as the fulfilment of Jewish hopes and prophecies. But the essential message still contained the same elements: the good news of hope for eternal life due to the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the good news. It never changes, but we constantly need to find new ways to articulate it, so that it makes sense in the prevailing culture.

For our missional community in central London we came to the following statement: “We’re a community following Jesus, because doing so brings us life in all its fullness and helps us turn the world upside down.” That was our mission statement, designed to appeal and make sense to people from all backgrounds, whether Christian, seeker, agnostic or atheist. And then when people wanted to learn more, we shared the good news about how easy it is to access this life in all its fullness by simply having faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

To Ponder:

• How do you describe the Christian good news?
• What is the vision, mission or purpose statement of your church? And does this speak to people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and a variety of faith positions?
• What would you say if a friend, family member or work colleague asked you this week to explain the essence of Christianity to them?

Prayer
Lord Jesus, guide me in how to share the good news with my friends, family and work colleagues. Guide me to understand how they view the world, and how your death and resurrection is good news for them. Please give me opportunities in this coming week to speak with others about you. Amen.

Bible notes author: Mark Williamson
Mark Williamson works for One Rock International, helping Christian leaders to start up and scale up mission projects. Methodist lay leaders are invited to join the next online One Rock Institute course of training and coaching in Christian leadership, starting in September 2026 – see https://onerockinternational.com/institute/.  Mark is also chair of Fresh Expressions UK, a local preacher, and a member of Methodist Central Hall Westminster.