It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
Proverbs 25:2

Back in the early 90’s, I was a new Christian. I read all the theology books I could get my hands on and listened to a ton of sermons on cassette tapes while driving up and down I-75 between Tennessee and Georgia. During that time, one of my friends turned me on to a guy named Tim Keller, who was starting a new church called Redeemer in New York City.

He had me at “Hello”.

Not only did I love Keller’s preaching, but I also deeply resonated with his efforts to take the gospel into a hardened, secular place like Manhattan. As an adult convert to the Christian faith, I knew what it was like to be suspicious of the gospel. I sensed a calling in my life to help other suspicious people know and experience the grace of God.

I wanted to move to New York.

Through several twists and turns, I wound up working at Redeemer nearly 10 years later. Since then, I have followed that same call: first to San Francisco and more recently to Seattle. For the last 15 years, I have tried to align my life with spreading God’s kingdom in 3 cities not known for their piety.

So what have I discovered?

I have seen God bless my labors with some good and satisfying fruit. I have seen churches grow and new churches planted. I have seen peoples' lives change through the power of the gospel. This past Sunday at church, Angela Wheeless told us some of her story. Hearing about God’s work in her life was a tremendous blessing to me. God is good, and he is at work.

But at the same time, the reality is God hides much of his work from us. He actively conceals what he is doing from us. We don’t see the full fruit of our labors. We don’t see many of the changes that are taking place around us. In addition, a lot of the things we have hoped to see simply don't materialize. For example, I have yet to see throngs of my non-Christian friends lining up to be baptized.

This can be frustrating and even lead to thoughts about giving up. But I think the hiddenness of God is a good thing. For one, it helps keep us humble. If God showed us all the work he was doing through us, we would probably become arrogant. Triumphalistic Christians are a menace, not a blessing. Secondly, the hiddenness of God also keeps us dependent upon him. When we can't see results, we must continue to trust in his goodness and cultivate soft hearts.

This is probably the most important result of the hiddenness of God. It shapes us into humble and dependent people while we walk along the path of mission. And, if there is one thing I have learned in a life lived in mission, it is that our character matters as much as results.

Here is an excellent sermon about the Hiddenness of God.

Loneliness needs to be considered a justice issue.

Let me clarify a few things. As Psychologist Keith Sonnanburg points out, being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. Seattle is filled with people who chose the former and are quite content; whereas loneliness is a sense of disconnection, a lack of genuine community. Loneliness knows no bounds. It affects those who are married, single, rich, poor, male and female. In the depths of loneliness, we desperately long to be known by someone and to know them.

Why is loneliness a justice issue? Tim Keller, in Generous Justice, defines pursuing justice as giving people what they are due as image bearers of God. We are due relationship. I am not suggesting that those who do good deserve relationship. Rather, relationship, just like food, is a human need. One needs it to survive. Because our modern world has made it difficult to connect with other people, loneliness is rampant.

Considering loneliness as a justice issue will change the way the Church responds. Most solutions I’ve seen include a call to change one’s habits. Get a hobby or a pet. Don’t medicate with busyness. Develop social skills that allow you to engage in conversation. Whether these solutions are right or helpful is not my point. My point is that by considering loneliness as a justice issue, we will see it as a societal problem, not just a personal one. We all have a part in finding a solution, including the Church.

How must the Church respond? I am not totally sure. I think that's conversation we need to have. Maybe it’s as simple as uncovering the seriousness of the issue and asking God to make us into people who care more. Maybe it’s intentionally fighting against isolation.

Whatever the solution, I think we must begin by seeing loneliness as an issue of justice.

Last week, Linn and I spent several days at Spanish River Church in Boca Raton, Florida. Spanish River Church has a long history of being very generous and mission-minded. Over the past 30 years, they have given away over ten million dollars to see the gospel spread all over the world. Their generosity has also impacted us personally. The last three churches Linn and I have been a part of—Grace Church Seattle, City Church of San Francisco, and Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City—have all been started through the generosity of Spanish River Church.

One of the things I really like about Spanish River Church is their single-mindedness. They believe that the best way to see God’s kingdom spread on earth is through the planting of churches. That’s where 100% of their mission giving goes. They don’t give to parachurch organizations or other ministry initiatives. They support church planting—period. They do this because they believe that starting churches is the wisest path to take in order to see the gospel make an impact over the long haul.

I think this is true. When a church gets planted, a new gospel-believing congregation comes into existence. This congregation’s life will be intertwined with the life of the community that surrounds it. Maybe the new church makes a big splash, but quite often it doesn’t. But, we need to remember that making a big splash is not the most important thing.

In a place like Seattle, one of a congregation’s greatest gifts it can offer our city is “staying power”—the slow, steady, faithful presence of a gospel-believing community. Our city is filled with doubting, skeptical, and suspicious people. More often than not, some of the most deeply held suspicions are directed at Jesus and his church.  This suspicion cannot be overcome in an instant. It takes a long time to earn trust. It’s slow, plodding, and meticulous work. But, I think it is work for which the local congregation is ideally suited.

Congregations have the unique ability to offer staying power to our city. Our belief is that, over time, God will use his congregations in this city to build something beautiful. I think this is what Jesus had in mind when he taught this parable:

Jesus put another parable before them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. (Matthew 13:31-32)

This Eastertide, our congregation is focusing on the mission that Jesus has given the church. As N.T. Wright so aptly put it, the task of the church is to “plant the flags of resurrection—new life, new communities, new churches, new faith, new hope, new practical love—in amongst the tired slogans of idolatrous modernity and destructive postmodernity.”

So here’s the question: How do we know when we’re doing a good job? How can an individual Christian or a congregation figure out if they are succeeding at the task God has given us?

For most of us, the stated or unstated default answer is this: the presence of tangible, positive results is a sure sign we are laboring well. These "positive results” can be various good things. For a Christian parent, positive results could be having children that grow up to be faithful Christian adults. For those with a heart for justice, positive results could mean effectively mobilizing others to serve the poor. For pastors, good results often mean numerical growth in a congregation.

I think this is a trap. Making these good things (and they’re all good things) barometers of whether or not we are doing a good job of following Jesus into mission quickly leads us astray. It makes us servants under the tyrannical rule of what William James so aptly called “the bitch goddess of success”.

So what are we to do? I think we should reject idolatrous notions of success. But we can’t just leave an empty space there. The via negativa is not a satisfying way to live. We need something positive to work towards. We need a better definition of true success.

I am currently reading through a book that gives such a definition. Kent & Barbara Hughes’ book, “Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome” has been very beneficial to me. Through a powerful combination of a life of ministry and a love for God’s word, they flesh out a compelling vision for evaluating our kingdom-centered labors.

Here is the core of their argument: faithfulness to God is success. This is so simple, but incredibly profound. Anyone can be faithful. Anyone can love God, serve others, and live a life of grateful obedience. And this is what we are called to do. Any other definition of success will ultimately undo you and those around you.

It’s true Kent and Barbara wrote the book for pastors. However, I think one can easily apply their concepts to other aspects of following Jesus into mission.

So, is it? Is Facebook making us lonely? That’s the question Stephen Marche sought to answer in his conversation-generating article published by The Atlantic. Noting the fact that we are more networked but also more lonely than ever, Marche seeks to understand how social media is affecting our relationships.

Our experience of loneliness has reached epidemic proportions. As a pastor, I hear more people say they struggle with loneliness than anything else. It is by far the biggest struggle in our community and, in my opinion, in Seattle. We are lonely people.

I am very thankful for this article not because of the solutions it offers but for what it uncovers. I agree with Marche when he writes, “Loneliness is certainly not something that Facebook or Twitter or any of the lesser forms of social media is doing to us. We are doing it to ourselves.” We are lonely because of how we choose to live.

This causes us to consider our habits and rhythms of life and ask some very honest questions. But I don’t think we should begin by only asking about what we do to ourselves that contributes to our own loneliness. We must also ask what habits and rhythms we employ that contribute to others’ loneliness. And not just as individuals, but also as communities. Why? Loneliness isn’t a personal problem; it’s a cultural one. Through our own habits, we have made it very easy for one another to be lonely.  As a result, I believe the way forward is for alternative communities to intentionally live in such a way that encourages relationship. The fight against loneliness must begin with an other-centered posture and it will take everyone, not just those who are lonely, to find a solution.

So, what habits do you employ that reinforce our culture’s experience of loneliness?

Because of the pervasiveness of this issue, this post is the first of many on the topic. We need to start talking about loneliness and asking God to direct us as we seek to address it.  Also, if you are interested in reading Stephen March’s article, it can be found here.