Do you think lonely people are just suffering from self-pity? That all they need to do is go to Church and volunteer their services. Repent and pray to God for mercy for being so self-indulgent?
Yet loneliness is the human condition. It doesn't discriminate age, gender or race. And more technology has made it worse perhaps? I dunno.
I see loneliness in the community that helps me forget the paltry amount I suffer. People stuck at home, due to fear of the "real" world. It is sad because they really don't have the coping skills.
So all they need is to discover Jesus Christ? But I think they need our compassion too.
I don't feel like this is purely a religious or even a technological issue. The truth is, people can go to church and be lonely in a crowd, and if they have underlying issues like social anxiety and whatnot, that isn't necessarily going to be solved by fellowship at coffee hour, going might even aggravate it. There can also be a lot of pressure to fit in when you're in any kind of a social group, even in a church, and even if it's only pressure to say "the right" things doctrinally or whatever as opposed to a generalized pressure to fit a mold.
I also don't think technology is an evil in this regard. My feeling is that a lot of people who don't have much human contact outside the Internet, in prior generations would have simply been bookworms or people who came home and watched movies after work every day by themselves or turned on the ball game each night and drank beer on their own or whatever. The Internet actually can provide people who otherwise wouldn't have much human contact a way to have at least some elements of that contact on terms they feel more comfortable and relaxed about. The most likely alternative hanging out on the Internet a ton isn't necessarily going out and being social in the flesh, it's finding something else to do indoors that's even less social.
I think one of the best things people can do to help others with loneliness is not to be judgmental. If someone is acting a little different in a harmless way or doesn't have the right job or even a job, who cares? Ditto for people you think might have an unhealthy weight or habits, or questionable disabilities, or "the wrong" sexual orientation or beliefs or whatever. Gossiping behind their backs or trying to get them into shape (i.e. matching whatever you think they should be) doesn't really help them (because it doesn't work- if they were both able to be and wanted to be what you want them to be, they already would be), and it doesn't really help you. It just isolates them more and gets you (I mean the generic "you", not Paul or anyone here) more upset.
Also, it's notable that we can look at some people, even people we know very well, and be utterly convinced that they can change their circumstances or who they are, but be wrong about that, because we're not infallible and we don't know everything. There could be things about the person that we don't know, or even things that they don't know about themselves. There could be trauma or mental blocks that they can't get beyond. Or maybe there's nothing wrong with them- they're just different- and it is we who are failing because we aren't embracing the diversity they add to the tapestry of the human race.
For the most part in life, people are who they are, and their circumstances are what they are, and we make the choice to either accept them for who they are or not to accept them. Acceptance with conditions or acceptance with the notion of changing them until we like them is not true acceptance. Acceptance is when we can look at someone and put aside any perceived faults and just think "I love this person for who she is and I don't need her to change.".
Acceptance and inclusion are both things that I would like to see one day become a very basic part of the Christian character.
