Whilst we have quite some way to go before reaching the high water mark of an integrated London transport system, The Bee Network in Manchester keeps growing positively. Yesterday, Andy Burnham announced the first trains to be included in the network. This is the next step towards a fully integrated transport system across Greater Manchester that includes, buses, trams and train. You can read the story here such as you are interested in it.

My reason for sharing this isn’t to laud the great strides being made in local transport. That is kind of exciting for us, but not so much for anybody else. Nor is this my opportunity to expound the joys of a socialist, publicly owned transport system. Undeniably better as things are now they are being brought back under public ownership and integrated in a system that works, you can have whatever political views you want. My reason for sharing this – and this isn’t so much to make a great deal about Andy Burnham particularly – but just to highlight one thing I think he has latched onto and got right. Namely, he cottoned onto the fact that people care about local transport, has made it his number one priority and spent virtually all his time talking endlessly about it.

Leave aside the actual policies for a moment. Leave aside party politics. Leave aside how much or little you regard Andy Burnham as a man. Leave aside, even, whether you think the transport network is actually better or not. My sole focus here is on messaging. I am not suggesting that Andy Burnham has said absolutely nothing else about anything else. I am not suggesting he has done nothing else but paint everything yellow. But it is undeniably true that he has set his focus on transport, majored on it as his flagship plan and talked primarily about what he will do to improve bus, tram and train journeys across the region. The messaging has been clear: it’s transport, transport, transport; Bee Network, Bee Network, Bee Network.

Inevitably, when you have a flagship policy on which you have centred your entire messaging, you do have to actually be able to action your plans. I think he has managed to broadly action each stage of the plan as he has set it forward. He took buses under public control and made them operate together, rationalised pricing and capped tickets. He got buses and trams talking to each other. He laid out future routes and plans and has begun work on them. He is now taking trains under public control as promised. Generally, I think he has done what he promised, put into action his plans on the timetable he said he would and has improved the transport system. The messaging has been backed by genuine steps forward. But my point here is that Burnham – who remains quite popular in the region – has cottoned on to a major issue people care about, that has a meaningful impact on their daily lives and then stuck rigidly to his messaging and plans to improve the matter.

The reason I bring this up here is because I think there is something we can learn in the church from this. We are not politicians. We are not seeking power. We are not trying to run public services. Clearly the lessons don’t lie here. But we are people with a message. We are gospel people with a gospel message that can and will serve all who come to believe it.

The lesson I think we can learn from Andy Burnham is about that messaging. There are all manner of things that we could get side-tracked by in the church. There are lots of things, that aren’t valueless or stupid, that could overtake. Just as Andy Burnham has dozens of different issues he could have promised to resolve and allowed to overtake his time, so the church has dozens of things it could occupy itself with too. But the question is: what are we fundamentally about? What is the core message that we want people to go away with when they encounter us in the church? There are lots of good things we might say, lots of good things we might do, but if people hear a message from us, what do we want them to go away having absolutely, definitely heard and understood? What do we want to be characterised and known for as churches?

For Andy Burnham, the answer to that is transport. Whatever else he may have said and done, the key message you hear from him is that he wants to fix the transport network. For the church, our answer must surely be the gospel. Whatever else we might say and do, the key message we should surely want every person who encounters us to hear and acknowledge is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We might serve and do all manner of other things quite legitimately, but our core messaging has to be about the gospel and our fundamental flagship policy that we stand or fall on ought to be the gospel.

What a sad indictment it would be if people encountered our church, went away with the impression we were very concerned about food poverty or people’s ability to pray their heating bill, but they did not go away with any sense that we were so much more concerned about Jesus and his gospel. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t do good things for people. It isn’t to say we shouldn’t serve them. But if our messaging is fundamentally that we care about your material needs, we are getting off-message. We need a solid focus on the gospel. Our messaging needs to be clear, upfront and fundamental.

It is a lesson I think we can learn.