How to be Good: Part 1 of 4

I thought this might be a catchy title because a few years ago I read a novel by Nick Hornby (of ‘High Fidelity’ fame) called, ‘How to be good’. It was a great read, if not a little depressing.

It was a story about Katie Carr who thought she was a good person, but had to come to terms with the fact that she had just committed adultery. She had done this because her husband was not a good person, but quickly undergoes a transformation which makes him nauseatingly good. Katie’s moral compass starts to spin and what it means to be good is up for grabs. As I said, an interesting read.

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how we feel as local churches about doing good.

Doing good with no strings attached, not as an icebreaker to evangelism, not as a lay ministry training opportunity.

Just doing good because we value the neighbourhoods we live in and we think that they could be better, and that we as a church are in a unique position to help.

We know where evangelism should be taking us.

We know where edification punches it’s weight.

But, like Katie Carr, have we lost our bearings on doing good? Have we forgotten what it’s there for and what we’re meant to use it for?

My guess is that this will either hit home, or bounce off you like bullets off superman.

So I’ll leave you with some questions to ponder:

As a local church, where does doing good for your community fit on your list of priorities?

If you try to pursue what is good for your neighbourhood, do you feel a little guilty that you’re not using that time and energy to evangelise them instead?

If you were to decide to devote yourself to doing good for your community, where would you start?

Do you think doing good just needs the church to be a bit ‘nicer’, or would it take a paradigm shift?

Tomorrow (Sydney time), I’ll give you my honest answers to these questions.