Good News and Why It Matters for Leadership
If the world (including you and me!) needs good news—and it does—then getting clear on what the good news is becomes essential. Lots of folk have lots of opinions on good news; everything from the right view on church order to holding a particular conviction about some doctrine can pass for “good news.” Likewise, non-church folk can identify all sorts of things that can be identified as good news. In the sweeping landscape of American public opinion, the good-news label is slapped on everything from Roth IRAs and lower interest rates on home mortgages to spa treatment plans and political claims.
However, the Christian claim on good news has a rather singular focus. For the people of God, good news has to do with God’s action. Having good news really isn’t “good news” if the news you are carrying or believing or working with is not first and foremost news about God. For leaders, getting ahold of the real good news makes all the difference between transforming leadership for the people of God and simply managing the comings and goings of a collection of people who happen to gather each Sunday.
So, let’s take a quick look. Echoes of good news are found in the Old Testament in places like Isaiah 40. The prophet receives a word from God to comfort his people and encourage them with the news that God is going to arrive: “Make a straight highway, fill the valleys and lower the mountains. Make it beautiful and level for God’s arrival” (v. 3). And then a voice urges the prophet again to “make it known!”
But the prophet knows better. The prophet understands well the frailty of people. Because of this knowledge, the prophet recognizes that if God shows up, it won’t be good news. So, the prophet responds: “What shall I cry? All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field, the grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass (Isa 40:6-7 NRSV).”
The prophet knows the reality of people and says that if God shows up it will be a bad thing, not a good thing. Intriguingly, a heavenly voice agrees—up to a point. Picking up with the narrative, “[Yes], the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa 40:8). The prophet is right about people—but wrong about God. God’s arrival actually is good news!
“[So] get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ (Isa 40:9).” Here is your God. God showing up is the good news. This is the news of the arrival of Jesus who is given the name “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us” (Matt 1:23). I believe that this claim of God’s arriving presence was what fueled Jesus’ ministry with the announcement that the kingdom of heaven was arriving. And, in the gospel of Matthew, it makes up the last words that Jesus spoke to his disciples as He commissioned them to make disciples: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).
The arriving and present Jesus is the good news of God. That is why Paul will claim that it is the very power of God to save and deliver people (Rom 1:16). I will say more about good news as it is offered in Acts on another occasion. However, for the moment here, I want to make some clear and important claims about the good news that inform the life of the church and the practice of ministerial leadership.
The good news is that God acts for humans in a way that brings meaningful life; the good news is not something humans do to find life and meaning that then pleases God.
The good news is not something humans do; rather, the good news is what God has done and is doing, and that humans receive.
Leaders and churches need the good news—just as much as your neighbor or friend needs the good news.
Leaders and churches that hear and receive the gospel will find power and voice to embody and speak the good news.
These claims about good news invite leaders to practice the following:
Pay attention. God is the One who acts and the One who saves. Humans respond to God’s action. Leadership is more about followership than we may think. Churches need leaders who understand that their primary task is to pay attention to the God who is showing up!
Receive the good news, and prepare the way for God. Receiving the good news begins with me. The good news is not something the church possesses and then shares with others. The good news addresses the church and the world, and it calls all to repent! One way to think about good congregational leadership is simply clearing the path for God to arrive in the hearts and lives of congregations and communities.
Pray for God’s arrival. Until we pay attention to God and receive the good news, the thing that leaders do is to pray. Prayer is the work of congregational leaders, and when leaders pray, the good news of God’s arrival will do what God desires to do, in Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Transformation and renewal will come.
May God’s good news rattle in your head, soften your heart, and pervade your soul this week!
Carson
