At church this weekend we sang the worship song Goodness of God
All my life You have been faithful,
All my life You have been so, so good…
With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God
And in the middle of worship I found myself wondering whether anyone could ever sing the same about public institutions.
All my life, the state has been faithful
All my life, public administration has been good to me
It may have surfaced because I’d been able to make some progress with PrayReps this week. Or perhaps because of my day job helping the Department for Work and Pensions to design a new approach to providing jobs and careers support for the country. A life-long companion to help people navigate work, whether they’re seeking their first job, having a mid-career reinvention, or easing into a well-earned retirement.
What would it take for one of our future users to say: “All my life, it’s been good to me. It didn’t fail me. It was there”.
Distinguishing the Eternal from the Everyday
Now, let me be clear. God’s faithfulness and public service are not equivalent. One is eternal, perfect, unchanging. The other, however well intentioned, is limited, provisional, human.
We don’t worship government. We’re not saved by it.
But Christians follow a God who is faithful and just, and we long for echoes of that same justice and faithfulness in the world around us. So when public institutions reflect those values, when they serve, protect, uplift, those actions resonate with something deeper. Something sacred. Something of God’s Kingdom.
Kingdœmocracy (Kingdom Democracy) is what my friend Dave and I have come to call this vision. A call for a distinctive, hope filled, understanding of how faith and politics intersect. A conviction that faithful citizenship involves loving our neighbour through the structures we build. That public service can reflect kingdom values. That Christians participate in democracy not to dominate, but to bless.
Trust, eroded
This may sound absurd given that public sentiment toward government is more often snark than song.
I think of a recent article about joy filled days for Bradford City fans following our 96th minute promotion winning goal, that couldn’t resist a dig at the council.
I think of Croydon, where we live, and how at cricket training on Friday evening conversation quickly turned to stories shaped by disappointment rather than any delight in our most proximate government.
I think of myself, the next day, speaking without grace about our Mayor.
And I think of recent local election results where once again, more than 60% of people didn’t vote, and many who did sent a clear statement about their perspective on the parties of government and official opposition.
We don’t often sing about the goodness of our public institutions.
We mock them.
We mistrust them.
And in some cases we fear them.
The problem isn’t just about performance. It’s deeper: trust has been hollowed out. Our starting point is to think ill, not well. In the UK our levels of public trust are amongst the worst in the world.
I don’t think any of our recent UK governments have recognised just how serious this is.
There is a lot to like about mission-led government1. But if I could have chosen one mission for this government, it wouldn’t have started with education, or health, or housing, or growth, it would have started with trust. Rebuilding belief in the purpose and possibility of public service is, for me, the wellspring of everything else.
But for me this isn’t a policy problem. It’s also a spiritual one.
Living in the partial
Perhaps it’s not surprising. We live in a society that is secular, market-driven, and proudly individualist. The state is tolerated, just about, more as a necessary nuisance than a shared good.
But through my faith-tinted lenses I see a world that is deeply hungry but looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places.
At the heart of Christian belief is this: only God offers completeness. And yet, we must live and govern within the partial.
There are two stories our societies tend to tell.
The first is secular and self-made: You got here through grit and resilience. You don’t owe anyone. The state only gets in your way.
The second is spiritual and sustaining: You are not alone. You are part of something more than yourself. And even in brokenness and despair, there can be justice, mercy and grace.
This second story is at the heart of kingdœmocracy.
Not because the Kingdom replaces the state.
Not because the state becomes sacred.
But because faith shapes how we invest in public life.
Because God is faithful, we can wait with patience.
Because God is good, we can serve generously.
Because God is King, we don’t need the state to be a saviour but we long for it to be just.
Joy beyond the scoreline
On the final day of the League Two season I drove up the M1 to Valley Parade with the phrase ‘confident, peaceful, joy’ on my lips. In the nervous hours before a match that would be the difference between promotion or playoffs I was moved to pray for Bradford City from top to bottom. I wasn’t praying for God to fix the result, I was praying for the people who collectively produce something I love dearly. For everyone, seen and unseen, in and around the club to know the love of Jesus Christ. For the confident, peaceful, joy that comes from fellowship with God.
And that phrase came back to mind as I watched the joyful scenes after Crystal Palace had won the FA Cup and Eberechi Eze, the man who’d scored the winner, gave all the glory to God. No bravado, no “I earned this.” Only gratitude. Only faith. Only God.
And he wasn’t alone. There’s a remarkable Christ-centredness to this Palace squad.
Undoubtedly there was a huge contrast on display at Wembley. Manchester City, the well-oiled machine of power and success, toppled by the underdog. For their fans, the world suddenly felt empty. For Palace fans, joy came bursting in.
But even that joy is going to be fleeting. Granted it might last a while (I’m still riding high from our 96th minute Aguero moment over two weeks later). But this world is temporal. Our emotions ride the results.
With God, it’s different. The blessing is already secured. The victory is already won.
You go into the match knowing that even if your team loses, your soul doesn’t. That’s salvation. That’s resurrection. That’s why joy in Christ is confident and peaceful. There is no changing the Gospel.
That’s the kind of joy I want to see ripple through our politics.
That’s the kind of joy I want to see in our services.
Not in a naïve or saccharine way but a deep, steady trust that our public institutions can be places of blessing. That our systems of support can be trustworthy companions, walking with people, not hollow shells, processing them.
Imagine if everyone’s experience was to walk into a Jobcentre and feel held and genuinely supported. It bears saying: this already is the experience for many, thanks to the dedication and compassion of Jobcentre staff across the country.
But how might we go further? What if public servants saw themselves as reflections of God’s goodness and care? That’s not about imposing faith or creating theocracy, it’s about faithful service.
It’s public administration that looks, and feels, and is, more like public ministry.
The voice that gives worth
To believe this is to reject the myth that success is ours alone to claim — which brings me to something that struck me in Sunday’s sermon. Our pastor picked up on Eze’s words too. He noted how often black British athletes, especially those shaped by church communities, give glory to God in moments of success. And how rarely that humility appears in more secular or culturally white expressions of achievement, where triumph is personal and gratitude is inward.
That observation made me think again about how we frame public life.
It made me reflect on how much our political culture is framed by individual strength. How often the state is reduced to either a limit or a launchpad for personal freedom.
But what if we saw it differently?
What if the state wasn’t a substitute for individual effort — but a vessel for communal strength?
What if public service was rooted in relationship, shaped by mercy, moved by love?
Because our worth doesn’t come from our self-sufficiency.
It comes from being in relationship.
In community. In communion. With each other—and with God.
Our identity isn’t set by polling.
Our value isn’t measured by productivity.
Our dignity isn’t earned by output.
Our worth is stored and permanent.
And the voice from above that gives it, God’s voice, tells us who we are, why we’re here, and how to keep going when everything stutters.
That’s the goodness of God.
And maybe, just maybe, if our politics were shaped by that voice, we might sing songs about the state.
A better story
That’s the hope I carry into my work.
That one day, someone might say:
“The Jobs and Careers Service walked with me. Through the despair of losing a job and the joy of promotion. In my dead ends and fresh starts. It was there. It helped. It did me good. It didn’t save me. But it didn’t fail me.”
Because when public service is shaped by kingdom values, it doesn’t just become more effective. It becomes more human.
And maybe, just maybe, someone will look back and say,
“All my life, it has been faithful.”
Not because the state is perfect.
Not because it redeems.
But because it knew who it existed to serve.
And whom it might, just faintly, reflect.
Not divine.
Not perfect.
But good.
- Notwithstanding the need for significantly more energy to be spent on establishing the foundations for its success. ↩︎