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Called-to-Stay-w-spine1-821x1024There’s been a lot of talk lately about millennials leaving the church. Being a part of that generation, it is a topic about which I am extremely interested. I’ve shared my thoughts on the subject here before.

Recently, I came across a book from a fellow millennial that takes a unique approach to the discussion. Caleb Breakey’s Called to Stay: An Uncompromising Mission to Save Your Church is not focused on why young adults are leaving the church. Rather, it is a heartfelt call from Caleb to his peers about why they should stay in the local church. He challenges readers to be like Jesus not only to those outside the church, but also to those within the body.

I’m thankful Caleb took the time to answer a few questions about his book, our generation, and why it is so important for faith to be lived out as part of a local church family.

Trevin: There’s been a lot of talk lately about millennials leaving the church. You and I belong to the millennial generation, and yet we’ve chosen to stay. You write:

“It’s time to pour the energy it takes to criticize the church into loving the unlovely within her.”

Why do you believe it’s important for young, idealistic people to stay and serve rather than leave?

Caleb: Jesus is calling us to love and serve not only the lost in this world, but also our brothers and sisters in Christ. That doesn’t happen when we leave local churches and cherry pick the kind of believers we hang out with. Instead, it happens when we:

  1. plug into an imperfect church filled with believers of greater and lesser spiritual maturity
  2. ask God, Who do you want me to invest in, Lord?
  3. respond accordingly

In doing so, you just might win over the Christian jerk and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20). That’s what happened to me.

Jesus said the world would know us by our love for one another (John 13:35). Not our love for those who are easy to love—but for the entire body of Christ, which is filled with sinners in need of the unrelenting discipleship Jesus commands in the Great Commission (i.e. “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”).

I love the passion of young people who leave the church because they don’t see Jesus in the church. But it’s a misguided passion in need of redirection.

Trevin: What are some ways you suggest disillusioned millennials turn their frustration with the church into fuel for helping the Body of Christ be all God intends it to be?

Caleb: Focus on intentionality, not results. When you decide to be like Jesus not only to those outside of the church, but inside as well, frustration inevitably transforms into fuel. You simply cannot be Jesus to people and not experience a crazy amount of heart-change and life-change. I know.

Bitterness to the church rendered me useless for a period of my life. But when God turned me toward the Jesus mirror, I realized that I was being harsh and unloving to people because they were being harsh and unloving. How messed up is that? So from that point on, I committed to being Jesus not only to the healthy people God put in my path, but the sick as well—even if those sick people were in my local church.

Trevin: I like how you challenge young people to start with themselves before they start working on the church. We need grace as much as anyone. At the same time, you say that we’re not fit for helping change the church until we are “one thousand percent sure that we love Jesus more than everything and everybody in our lives.” Is it possible to be that sure of our spiritual devotion? 

Caleb: A great writer once told me that if you scream at the page, the reader hears a whisper. So when it comes to our devotion to Jesus—hands down the most important aspect of every person in history—I screamed. The point isn’t so much about our sureness of devotion, but the presence of it.

It’s been said that if you want to know if someone is alive, don’t look for a birth certificate—check for a pulse. I wanted Called to Stay to serve as a pulse-checker for every Christ-follower who wants to see more Jesus in the Church.

Trevin: You encourage believers to be more “childlike” in our faith. Why is childlikeness essential for Christians who want to see the Church grow into spiritual maturity?

Caleb: We all need a heart that bleeds the humility, trust, and abandonment of a child. If you’re not humble, you cannot love unlovely people. If you don’t trust God or the work of His Spirit inside you, you cannot radiate true freedom. And if you’re not abandoned to the fact that you’re a child of the King, you cannot live the kind of God-glorifying life that’s greater than yourself.

Embracing a lifestyle of childlikeness kills pride, kicks conformity, and frees you to live in a way that unsettles stagnant believers and liberates others to “turn and become like children” (Matthew 18:2-3). When one person of God shrinks from adultlikeness into childlikeness, spiritual maturity cannot help but increase in the body of Christ.

Trevin: There’s a realistic thread running through your book that says: “Brace Yourself, you will get hurt.” You write:

“To truly love someone is to resign yourself to hurt. We cannot love someone without adding hurt to our lives. Because true love, unconditional love, is established through hurt. Hurt proves that love is true.”

Why is this an important truth to remember?

Caleb: Jesus died at the hands of his people, for his people. By this we know his love is true and have the ultimate example of how we should treat his bride.

We will hurt and be hurt when we invest in the body of Christ, but this is how we prove our love for Jesus is true—by hurting for who he hurt for and by giving our lives to those for whom he gave his life. Think 1 John 3:16: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

Why is this truth important to remember? Because we’re never more like Christ than when we’re forgiving someone—or a church full of someones—who doesn’t deserve it. The proof is in the cross.

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