“We must live in the city to serve all the peoples in it, not just our own tribe.” – Tim Keller
This August, Pope Leo XIV is asking us to join him in praying for evangelization in cities. This request reflects the difficulty of sharing the Gospel in densely populated areas, where neighbors are frequently unknown to one another and many are plagued by loneliness.
The founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and the international City to City network, Tim Keller, spent decades of his life trying to overcome the hurdles faced by sharers of the Gospel in the Big Apple. While cities face a variety of problems – from poverty to transient populations – the Manhattan that Keller evangelized in was full of young professionals who possessed high levels of education, growing bank accounts, and who had largely rejected the teachings of Christianity as they engaged in the constantly uphill pursuit of success, wealth and status. In this context, many churches failed to reach the very people they sought to evangelize due to the mismatch between what they were “selling” and what the city’s population was looking for. Keller stepped into this gap by learning to “speak the language” of the young professionals and coming to understand the unique ways that this population was hungry for the Gospel, so that he could help lead them to it. His sermons were, like his parishioners, heavily intellectual and yet entirely practical and applied to the realities of daily life in the city. (To be fully transparent, Keller attended the seminary that is affiliated with my undergraduate college, was friends with my childhood pastor, and was then my own pastor for several years before I converted to Catholicism. Consequently, there is a special place in my heart for his writing and teachings.)
As I join Pope Leo in his prayers this month, I will be remembering Tim Keller and the ways that he evangelized the city. I will also be praying for those who continue to do this work –both clergy and laity – that God will sustain them in their difficulties and help them to develop creative ways to bring the Gospel to the people in today’s cities, particularly those who feel alone amidst the multitudes. I will also be asking for God to reveal himself through the art, culture, and music that makes so many cities wonderful.
A video recording of Pope Leo’s prayer for the month of August is available here.
Image: “Prague” (CC BY 2.0) by Richard Ricciardi
Ariane Sroubek is a writer, school psychologist and mother to two children here on earth. Prior to converting to Catholicism, she completed undergraduate studies in Bible and Theology at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She then went on to obtain her doctorate in School and Child Clinical Psychology. Ariane’s writing is inspired by her faith, daily life experiences and education. She is currently writing a women's fiction novel and a middle-grade mystery series. Her non-fiction book, Raising Sunshine: A Guide to Parenting Through the Aftermath of Infant Death is available on Amazon. More of her work can be found at https://mysustaininggrace.com.
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