Secret millionaire, secret kingdom

Monday being my day off means it's an opportunity to sit down and watch TV in the evening. Except of course that there's rarely anything on worth watching. And now we have even more channels of not much worth watching ...

That said, we did get into watching the Secret Millionaire (9pm on Channel 4). In case you've not come across it before, the idea is that a millionaire goes undercover for a few days, living in a (usually deprived) locality and visiting community projects, meeting both 'clients' and 'providers'. Then at the end they decide which projects/individuals they're going to give some of their money to.

It's all a bit contrived and by now, you do wonder whether the beneficiaries haven't already figured out what's going on before the great unveiling, at least in some cases. The show's been around for a while now - are we the only ones who watch it?

But mostly, the surprise seems genuine, and never fails to produce a certain dampness on the cheek, at least for the adults in our house. It's heart-warming stuff and it does seem as if the millionaires get as much if not more out of the whole experience.

But what really strikes me in watching these programmes (and what makes it so moving when cheques are presented) is just how many people there are out there, selflessly serving their communities, making a difference to people's lives. And often with little or no reward or recognition.

Sometimes, it's clear that the projects are Christian-based (as you might expect, given the immense amount of community work engaged in by the church in this country). But mostly, it seems that this is not the case. I suspect that most of those involved would say 'I'm not religious' - and yet something deep within them drives them to live very sacrificial lives.

It seems to me that wherever we come across goodness and compassion (and truth and beauty), we should name them for what they are: expressions of the image of God in us and of the kingdom of God in our midst.