Caleb Breakey is a former sports journalist, winner of the 2012 ACFW Genesis Contest, and most importantly a millennial writing to fellow millennials in his book Called to Stay: An Uncompromising Mission to Save Your Church.
Called to Stay follows this structure. Part one (chapters 1–3) discusses why millennials should not abandon the church. Part two (chapters 4–8) instructs them on how to live as those who stay; specifically, chapters 7–8 are a field guide on infiltration. Part three (chapters 9–10) provides the escape clause regarding when to leave a toxic church where there’s no way forward, alongside a last charge to infiltrate.
This book draws attention to an existing tension. Do we need youthful enthusiasm to reinvigorate a lost church, or do we need youth to learn from their elders in the faith? As with many tensions, we are prone to fall to one side over against the other. Let’s be wary of developing a false dichotomy. To be sure, the church needs millennial idealism and youthfulness to invigorate her. Nevertheless, millennials need to understand their place within God’s sovereign work. They must listen to and learn from the cloud of witnesses who have come before them.
Enthusiastic Invigoration
The intentions behind Called to Stay are well placed. Essentially it can be described as enthusiastic invigoration. This is a shot of what the church needs. In some sense it’s the flipside of the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism coin.
Called to Stay: An Uncompromising Mission to Save Your Church
Caleb Breakey
Called to Stay: An Uncompromising Mission to Save Your Church
Caleb Breakey
“We have amazing purpose and influence,” Breakey declares. “We get to tell others about the one and only King who died so that we might live” (30).
Called to Stay gives millennials a purpose, a group to join, and a badge to wear.
Solid Biblical Ecclesiology
Breakey researched broadly on practical ecclesiology for this book. The margins are filled with quotes to tease millennial readers into continue reading.
Breakey leverages this research to make solid points. He instructs us to embrace God’s plan for church structure (37) and to stop searching for the ideal church (42). He debunks the faulty and popular view that true followers of Jesus must leave the church (54). What Breakey does, in other words, is feed millennials biblical ecclesiology.
If millennials wish to serve the church and invigorate her, Breakey contends, they must do so with a humble posture of service. He’s on track in chapter four when he challenges us to dig deep through prayer and self-examination, and he offers a warranted suggestion in chapter six to retain childlike faith and be freed from conformity and pride.
“Becoming childlike helps you put the spotlight on others,” Breckey writes, “Instead of being wrapped up in your job and your goals and your passions, you start asking others about their job and goals and passions” (100). This is a dose of what we millennials need to hear.
Misleading Illustrations
Yet there’s another edge to this blade. Breakey employs two particular allegories that inadvertently turn millennials from invigorators into saviors, thus distracting us from the true Rescuer.
I doubt Breakey intended in chapter five to impersonalize the person of the Holy Spirit by relating him to a big glowing ball (85-89). I also doubt he meant to convey that the Holy Spirit acts on a believer’s whim as the allegorical character Jack commands the glowing orb to do. Moreover, though Holy Spirit’s work is not random, this is exactly how the ball behaves in the story—unpredictable and even reckless. It damages the window of the house. I don’t want to speculate on whether the house is our heart or the church. Either way, it’s an unfortunate image.
Chapter seven’s allegory about Justin, Christi, and Haley also demonstrates this threat. The use of allegory here is risky, if not dangerous, for it portrays Haley as the heroine of the story. Haley represents the millennial whom Justin enlists to facilitate reconciliation between him and his estranged wife, Christi. Justin, being the “Jesus” of the story, appears impotent in his plight. Without Haley (the millennial) swooping in to correct unfaithful Christi (church member), what would Justin (Jesus) do? Though likely unintentional, this story elevates the empowered millennial infiltrator over an impotent Christ figure for correcting the misguided ways of the church.
The use of these two allegories is unfortunate, for there’s an underlying sense that the triune God stands helpless in the church’s plight. But millennial reinvigoration will not save the church. Only the sovereign and providential hand of the Lord will save her.
Additionally, I wonder if the “infiltrator” label should be reconsidered. By adopting this label, millennials are cast as young men and women re-entering to fix what older generations broke. And when we consider that these millennials are armed in chapter eight with an assessment tool to profile individuals in their churches, I have to wonder whether this is the most helpful approach.
Millennials need to return assuming a posture as listeners and learners rather than as critics. Millennials have a lot to learn from the older and wiser generations.
Solid Points
Called to Stay has solid points that millennials and the church must heed. This well-intentioned call to return to and reinvigorate the church is at times helpful and at times less so.
May God grant us millennial believers the grace to serve with humble courage for the good of our Savior’s bride.