A book I first studied 15 years ago has a prophetic message for the church in our current time. Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society continues to speak with clarity into the life of the church in the mid-2020s. In a world crowded with competing truths, Newbigin reminds us that the credibility of the gospel does not rest on accentuating antagonisms or accelerating innovation, but on the visible life of the local church.
Newbigin calls the local congregation “the hermeneutic of the gospel”—the living interpretation through which the world can see and understand what God has done in Christ. When believers worship joyfully, serve humbly and live with hope, they make the gospel tangible.
Such congregations, he says, are communities of praise, truth, service and hope. They exist not to retreat from the world but to live within it as signs of God’s kingdom. The gospel is not private opinion but public truth—a story that gives meaning to history and purpose to humanity.
Newbigin’s vision reflects Ephesians 4:11-13. Pastors are not program managers but shepherds who equip God’s people for witness in workplaces, homes and neighbourhoods. Pastoral leadership turns the congregation outward, forming disciples who live the gospel incarnationally.
He issues a call to confidence. In pluralist societies it’s easy to become timid, as if the gospel were only one voice among many, or anxious, as if its survival depended on us. Instead, Newbigin reminds us of Jesus’ words: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). The risen Christ still sends His people into the world with assurance that His Word is truth and His Spirit still moves.
It is one of my great joys in ministry to see local congregations whose worship, service and daily witness make the gospel believable and compelling.
They are grounded in God and His Word and focused on God’s mission.
They are being equipped for God’s mission in Jesus and transformed by His Holy Spirit among us. How’s your church looking?
Dr Eddie Tupa’i is the President of the New Zealand Pacific Union Conference.
