Seattle is a city on edge. As one journalist put it, we pride ourselves as being “an emerald refuge in the corner of a troubled country”. But over the past several months, several random killings have shattered that identity.

Though I didn’t know any of the victims, some of these killings have hit very close to home. Justin Ferrari, father of two, was shot in broad daylight at an intersection that’s home to one of my family’s favorite restaurants. It’s also two blocks away from where my kids will go to high school, and one block away from their favorite playground.  We’re in that neighborhood all the time. Another victime, Gloria Koch Leonidas, was shot during a car jacking. The shooting took place a half-mile from my office.

So how should Christians respond in light of these events? What does it mean for us to be faithfully present in our city at this time?

I think that both congregations and individual Christians need to see this as an opportunity to love and serve our city. A very significant part of a healthy Christian identity means we understand that God has placed us in the city to be a blessing to the city. We’re not to be AGAINST the city with a posture of angry self-righteousness. Nor are we to simply be OF the city, absorbing all of the city’s values and no longer living distinctly as God’s people. Rather we are to be FOR the city—living uniquely as God’s people in a way that seeks to bless the city.

This is a great calling to embrace. We need to realize that the church has been uniquely gifted by God to do this very thing. Now is a great time for Christians to live up to the task God has given us.

What might this look like right now? I will sketch out a few possibilities.

1. Share in Grief & Anger. Innocent people have been killed. The peace of our city has been vandalized by the violent. We should join those around us in grief, anger, and sorrow. Of all the people in the world, Christians know that the world is not the way it should be. This should move us to compassion and shared lament with our city.

One woman in our congregation sent me this beautiful email last week.

The Cafe Racer folks live near me, and there was a big group of regulars mourning together in the street Wednesday evening. Neighbors came out and everyone just stood in a big group (50 people or so) together listening to an accordion player and a singer. It was good to mourn together for our broken neighborhood and for the tragedy. There were all kinds of different people coming together…. We're not really afraid, but we don't really know where to start with reaching out as our neighbors grieve. Thanks for praying for us and the Cafe Racer owners and regulars.

This is both a priestly and a prophetic role for Christians to play. It is priestly because we are helping tend to the wounds of sin and death that are present in our city. It is prophetic because in our grief, we are proclaiming that things should not be this way.  We can and should groan because all creation groans.

2) Model a Different Way of Responding to the Violence. The killings were sinful and should not have happened. God created human beings to love one another, not to kill one another.

At the same time, Christians should be able during to model anger and grief without self-righteousness. This is because we understand that we are not innocent. Like the violent people in our city, we are sinners. True, most of us will never shoot another human being in cold blood. Regardless, the Christian self-understanding is that of people who understand that our greatest need is for forgiveness—from God and others.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said it well:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

This is an entirely counter-cultural way to respond to violence. We can express solidarity with both the victims and the perpetrators. The church has a great opportunity before us to model grief and anger in a gospel-shaped manner. This is a great gift to offer others.

3. Be a Welcoming Place for Seattle’s Outcasts. The church is many things. First and foremost, I would say that the church is a family.

If you read the stories about Ian Stawicki, they are heart-breaking. He was an angry, troubled man. Ian's brother was not surprised that he turned violent.

In light of Ian’s history, here are my questions: Would it have made any difference in his life if he was befriended by one Christian? What if he would have been welcomed by an entire congregation and treated as a member of its family?

Again, I don’t know the details of Ian’s life at all. Maybe such things did happen. Maybe they didn’t happen and even if they would have happened, he still would have killed all those people. But these are important questions for the church to ask.

Here's why. One of the greatest things a Christian congregation has to offer our city is it’s own life as a congregation. We have the ability, as an extended family, to welcome the widow, the orphan, and the outcast. True, this needs to be done wisely and with great care, but it is a significant calling for the church.

4. Be Available. During times like these, people are understandably shaken up. They are also likely to ask questions, big questions that have to do with human nature, evil, suffering, and God. This gives Christians opportunities to speak God’s truth when appropriate. This isn’t free reign to shove the Bible down peoples’ throats. But we may find, however, that some people may be now asking some questions they have never seriously considered. This is a great opportunity to carefully and wisely speak God’s truth into a city that really does need it.

God loves Seattle. He loves her so much he has placed many faithful congregations in her midst. Christians, now is the time for us to seek the peace of our city.

Over the last week, Seattle has experienced unsettling violence. A father of two randomly shot and killed while driving in the Central District. A gunman shooting five people, four of them dying, in a University District coffee shop and then traveling downtown to take the life of another. Our city is shaken, on edge even. People want answers. They want to understand. They want to feel safe.

Tragedy makes a predictable and comfortable world suddenly seem unbearable. This is intensified when the acts of violence seem random. Our hearts break for the victims and their families. We wonder about our own fate. What if we were there? A loved one? Questions we don’t want to think about but can’t help asking.

I don’t have any easy answers and, thankfully, neither did the mayor because there are none. Certainly, we need to consider gun laws or how to change what seems to be an increasing culture of violence. But at the end of the day, our world is broken. We live a world where tragedy happens.

I was reading Danny Westneat’s column that recently appeared in the Seattle Times. In it, he captures the emotional state of our city and the ensuing questions that many of us are asking. Are we safe? How are we to respond to such violence? Should we move to what seems to be safer neighborhoods? After reflecting on these questions, a mother of two responded with, “We can’t leave.” This is our city. We can’t abandon it.

But, why? Why can’t we leave? Or, even better, why shouldn't we leave?

We shouldn’t leave because God has not abandoned his creation. Through Jesus Christ, God has set in motion a project of renewal that extends to every inch of creation; even violence-infested cities. He will make things new and it is through his people that this renewal is taking place. Yes, it takes the eyes of faith to see. Yes, our vision has been blurred these last few days. Nonetheless, we stay because God stays. We love because God loves. We serve because God serves.

Though God’s commitment to our city still requires us to mourn loss, to ask difficult questions and find wise and loving solutions, we do so with the hope that God, through his people, will bring love and life. Though frightened and on edge like everyone else, the church must embrace the chaos, pray against it, and hope for healing. We are to be a people for the city. A woman in our congregation wrote a great blog post on how such a posture could manifest itself in real life. She writes,

"For me, I think I can bless by getting involved at crime prevention meetings and adding to the public discourse. Public discourse in such times is not safe, though. People's emotions are running high, and now more than ever the city needs calm voices offering logical practical changes to prevent crime and compassionate support to victims of crime. Our police department is under fire from the Department of Justice, which they frankly deserve. They too need calm, logical voices offering feedback and support in wise ways. They need faithful truth tellers who are FOR the city, FOR the police, FOR the victims, and FOR those who commit such crimes."

God has not abandoned the city and neither should his people. I understand the difficulty of this call. After hearing about what took place at the coffee shop about a mile from our house and realizing that the suspect could be close, all I wanted to do was put my family in the car and drive west. Of course there are situations that such a response is wise. Regardless, our posture must be that this place is where God has called us and he has not left us to ourselves.

I will end with some wise and comforting words found in Psalm 46:

"God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling."

I took this picture Sunday on the way to church. It’s a dandelion growing out of a small crack in a retaining wall. It beautifully embodies one of the dominant meta-narratives that Seattleites embrace: we will struggle against the forces of conformity so that life can emerge.

This story informs how we approach our jobs. We want good and satisfying jobs, but we do not want to sell our souls for them. Let the New Yorkers grind themselves to powder working 16-hour days. We’ve got trails to hike and cooking classes to take.

This story informs how we approach food. We don’t want genetically modified food shipped here from Lord-knows-where-in-the-Midwest. We want locally grown produce, cage-free eggs, and craft-brewed ginger beer.

This story informs how we approach how we structure our economic life. Who cares how they do it everywhere else? We don’t want a big-box, chain-store culture here. We want unique, creative, human-scale, and real.

Why do we do this? Why are we so willing to fight against the grain in so many areas of our lives? We do things differently because we believe that, very often, the way to fullness of life requires us to choose a different path from millions of others. This is Seattle’s glory. It’s also why I moved here nearly nine years ago.

So what does this have to do with the gospel?

J.R.R. Tolkien once said that all good stories ultimately point us to God’s story. For example, many good stories have as their conclusions a beautiful sketch of the world made right. According to Tolkien, these stories resonate so deeply with us because that is the same story that God is currently writing. God is presently making the world right, and one day “every tear will be wiped away”. This is why, as cliché-filled as it may seem, we just can’t seem to shake the satisfaction of a novel or a movie that ends with “and they lived happily ever after.”

I think Tolkien’s statement about stories is also true for the cultural narratives of a city. This means that Seattle’s story, if we listen carefully, points us to the gospel.

How so?

Looking at life through the lens of Seattle’s story, we know that the world is messed up. We know that what so often passes for “life”, is really just a gross distortion of how things ought to be. We instinctively know that the world is often giving us EPCOT versions of reality. They are soothing, predictable, and entertaining—but they can never bring us the life for which we long.

This, according to the gospel, is the world’s problem. We have given up the real thing: the unpredictable, difficult, exhilarating, and deeply-satisfying life with God. Instead, we are told to be satisfied with bland, neutered alternatives: either life without God or life with a counterfeit God.

This is our city’s invitation to repent and join our lives to God’s story. If we would begin to do this, we would truly begin to experience life.

Rise up, Seattle.

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.

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)