ALISTAIR McGrath is no intellectual pygmy. As I understand it, he holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Divinity, a Master of Arts, and three honorary doctorates. He’s a clever chappy!

I was particularly impressed by a recent article of his in which he talked about the change of emphasis he noticed in the conversations he had with lots of young people during his final years as a theology professor at Oxford.

Instead of challenging him about the existence of God or the historicity of the resurrection they were keen to understand how Christianity helped people find meaning. They seemed to sense that it offers a richer vision of life than secularism.

I found that really encouraging. It was great to read a ‘good news story’ given all the ‘gloom and doom’ that’s dominating the news at the moment.

Thankfully, there is a lot of good news around if we are willing to look in the right place, and some of it reinforces Mcgrath’s conviction that Christianity is not just truthful it is also ‘transformative’, not least in the way it challenges us to make a positive contribution to this troubled and needy world. Here are two good examples.

Just prior to reading McGrath’s article I came across the story of ‘Home for Good’. If you know nothing about it, I’d encourage you to familiarise yourself with its work. It was birthed more than a decade ago when the Evangelical Alliance, Care for the Family and Thirtyone:eight launched a campaign within churches to raise awareness of the urgent need for foster and adoptive families and to see that need met through the church.

Amazingly, what began as a campaign eventually gave birth to a charity and in 2024 this merged with Safe Families, another charity that focused on preventing children entering care through early intervention and support for isolated families

Since the start of both charities more than 12,000 families have been supported through early intervention programmes and they have journeyed with more than 1,800 potential adoptive parents, foster carers and supported lodging hosts.

This is what can happen when Christians seek to be a force for compassionate action.

I came across another inspiring report too. It focused on the work of MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) a wonderful initiative that takes ‘medical supplies, doctors, and nurses to places no one else can reach and ensuring critical care gets to where it’s needed most’.

MAF will begin to transition out of Tanzania later this year because the country is in much better shape than when it started serving there over 60 years ago. Life expectancy in 1963 was 44 years but is now 70, and in the last 25 years maternal mortality has reduced by 71 per cent!

It really does make sense to become a Christian, because living a life of love for God and others gives meaning to life and never ceases to be transformative or fulfilling.