It’s been one week today since I’ve returned from my trip to North Carolina, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about one central theme. Like ripples lapping onto a shore long after the rock that caused them hit the bottom, I keep returning this one idea: For whom is the Good News good news?
Spending time with Pastor Victor Glover of our Southeast Regional Conference last week allowed me to hear from, speak to, and briefly interview nearly two dozen incarcerated men. I probably shook hands with twice that many.
A portion of these men were graduates from the Fathers on the Move (FotM) reentry program. And the best part of both graduation ceremonies was getting to hear their prepared speeches and testimonies. Some brought poetry and music, some brought letters they wanted to share with family and friends, and others delivered impassioned speeches to the other incarcerated men who either have yet to sign up for FotM, or those who moving through the program.
Regardless, almost to a man, they talked about the issues that brought them to incarceration (their own internal issues, like anger, brokenness, fatherlessness, and addictions). To a man, they talked about wanting to be better fathers, grandfathers, sons, and brothers. To a man they were willing to own their crimes and yet desired to move forward, no longer limitedly defined as criminals.
They were eager to hear and embrace the idea that outside the walls and chain link fence, they could have genuine, no holds barred, forgiveness. For their crimes, and their souls.
To hear these men embrace the essential message of the gospel with so much enthusiasm, of captives set free, of being truly forgiven, was somewhere between refreshing and shocking.
Thinking about it rationally, it shouldn’t be either. Of course, incarcerated men want to be both set free and forgiven. Of course, incarcerated men, whether they have a desire to make a meaningful change, or not, want their pasts forgotten. That’s perfectly understandable.
As I thought about it, that salient mixture of refreshing and shocking was just so because I hadn’t seen a room full of men express such deep desire for the simple message of the Good News in a long time.
And that thought struck me. I sit in church essentially every week. It’s not a small church either. Worship takes place in a large room where most of the available seats are taken. And yet I can’t remember the last time I saw a response to the basic message of the Good News in this way. And that’s not because the Gospel isn’t regularly shared!
I’ve regularly been in rooms full of pastors, professional Christians, and long-time disciples, who would get excited about worshiping the Lord. They might even shout, holler, and amen certain ideas about God and scripture. But that same excitement isn't shared during a clear presentation of the Gospel.
Again, the message of the Good News is preached. It is, constantly. But that news has lost it’s effect on us who feel safe with the knowledge that we are already forgiven, or that our sins are minor, inconsequential, hidden, merely spiritual.
Watching men experience forgiveness is enough to remind me that I am daily, desperately in need of it too.
And it makes me wonder if at the heart of much of our issues with discipleship, growth, and church health is a certain apathy toward the fundamental, properly basic message of Jesus. The Good News.
Is the Good News good news to us anymore? Are we in search of more news, other news, different news than the Good News; of the news that we have sinned and God has forgiven us?
If and when we fail to perceive the Good News as good news, how could we ever hope to communicate it or contextualize it to another generation? When our lives don’t align with the Good News, when it doesn’t look like we believe it, and when it doesn’t seem that we think it’s all that good, it’s no wonder we struggle to share it. “This is the Good News,” we say. And we hear back, “Well, you don’t seem all that excited about it.”
For the men in the Fathers on the Move program, the Good News is really good news. It’s life changing news, both spiritually for their souls and physically in their present context. There are people all around the world for whom the Good News is felt the same way. Many people are desperate to know they are forgiven and to find freedom in Christ.
For the average Christian in affluent societies like the U.S., myself included, the Good News might sound like hard news. The Good News asks a lot, like denial of self, service to others, to forgive as we are forgiven. It pushes us to live within certain norms which may be inconvenient socially or politically. And it expects us to “go and make disciples” which can get in the way of what we want to do on a Friday evening.
But for the men I spoke with and heard from, the Good News of Jesus is real and its very good news. Pastor Victor Glover, the man they call “Bishop”, tells them at the end of each service, “if no one’s told you in a while, I love you”, and they believe it.
CGGC eNews—Vol. 20, No. 5
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