On the beauty of an ordinary Christian life

Stories – we love them. Rules and theories go in one ear and out the other, but stories stay with us. Perhaps that’s why Jesus so often taught His disciples through parables. 

“What’s the story?” we may ask our friends when we meet. When events are reported in newspapers they are often referred to as ‘stories’. Secular media likes bad news stories in particular – bad news sells, and attracts our attention. Hence the term ‘doomscrolling’, which we use to describe our social media addiction; most of what we see, posted by our friends, acquaintances and online connections, is one form of doom or another. 

Christian media, on the other hand, is often looking for the positive stories of God at work. The same can be said of Christian influencers on social media or preachers in their pulpits. The danger is that this desire for good news can turn into what Barbara Brown Taylor calls “solar spirituality”: the myth that the Christian life is crammed full of blessings. This means we sometimes end up only sharing stories of miraculous turnarounds rather than the stories of Christians who continue to patiently endure suffering. 

But life isn’t like that. The average Christian doesn’t start a business from their kitchen table and see it expand worldwide, or go out to some benighted region and pioneer a mission among leprosy sufferers. Most of our lives are pretty ordinary.

Ordinary lives don’t generally make great news stories

Readers may think me a success for having had a moderate writing career, but most days I’m found trying to put together three incompatible foods from the fridge to create a meal, or squashing maggots from the food waste bin (yes, I’m a pacifist and a vegetarian, but I draw the line at saving the lives of maggots). 

On the wall in my church is a brass plaque dedicated to the memory of Alfred Poole Joyce, who “entered into life eternal 5 February 1912”. It also records that he “filled every office open to a layman in the Kentish Town Circuit” and adds at the end: “They that deal truly are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22, KJV). This sign has always gently amused me. What reassuring ordinariness! I can picture Alfred in his three-piece suit, perhaps a gold watch attached to a chain in his pocket, faithfully serving the church in every way he could. He might have merited a tribute in the circuit newsletter, but never an article in whatever national Methodist magazine existed at the time. 

I’m heartened to see that some parts of the Christian media are resisting the temptation to only report the dramatic and instead give us stories both of suffering that doesn’t end in triumphant healing and of ordinary people serving God in ordinary ways. This magazine’s ‘Thank God it’s Monday’ column is a case in point. 

Yes, ordinary lives don’t generally make great news stories. But remember that passage in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce (Collins), where an ordinary-looking woman is called to the highest throne of heaven? “Who is she?” ask the onlookers. “You won’t know,” is roughly the answer. But God knows: her invisible life was a triumph of faith, love and hope, and she deserves the greatest honour.