“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 9:16–17)

I've been in church for as long as I can remember.

If I make a conservative estimate—say I've been to Sunday church 40 times a year—then I multiply that by my age (52)… that means I've attended over 2000 Sunday services.

I've also been to lots of summer Bible camps. Let's say I averaged 1 week of camp per year of my life (again, a fairly conservative estimate). Doing the math — I've attended 1 year of Bible camp.

Potluck meals? I've probably eaten one Cracker Barrel's worth.

And as a pastor, I've even led a lot of this stuff.

I've been a youth pastor, worship pastor, associate pastor, lead pastor, and missionary pastor—and I've done these things in a variety of places: the Midwest, the Middle Country (China), and the middle of the Rockies.

And I've noticed something.

Churches and ministers (including myself) have often operated with an unspoken and unfortunate formula for engaging with people.

If I forget to say it later, let me say it now: I'm sorry.

Because we (the standard American church) have asked you to walk a path that looks something like this:

Believe > Behave > Belong > Be Seated.

And it's not working very well.

According to Gallup, U.S. church membership fell below 50% in 2020—down from 70% in 1999. The largest decline was among young adults, with only about 36% of millennials belonging to a church. Meanwhile, Barna Research found that nearly two-thirds of young adults who grew up in church have dropped out.

Honestly? I don't blame them (or you).

Let me explain.

Believe >

First, we asked you to believe.

What have we asked you to believe?

We've asked you to believe in the same way we do.

The comedian Emo Phillips tells this joke:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!"

He said, "Nobody loves me."

I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"

He said, "A Christian."

I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me, too! What franchise?"

He said, "Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist."

I said, "Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."

I said, "Die, heretic!" and pushed him over.

Funny, but uncomfortable, because the joke hits too close to home.

Sadly, the love from churches (like mine) and ministers (like me) has been conditional.

But the reality is, ensuring you first believed like us made us feel safer. It was love without risks.

So, once it was established you believed like us, the next step is to belong, right?

Not so fast.

Behave >

We also wanted to see if you behaved like us (on our good days, of course).

“Don’t do this. Do that. Stay away from them. Stick close to us.”

After all, if you believe like us, you instinctively behave like us… right?

Belong >

Then, once we monitored your belief and behavior and determined you thought and acted like us, we could finally say, "You belong..."

Where exactly?

In a seat.

Be Seated.

Believe, Behave, Belong, Be Seated. Enjoy the show with people who think and act like you (like us).

We turned discipleship into spectatorship, making following Jesus a comfortable show to watch instead of a life to live.

Pause.

Does that at all sound like how Jesus interacted with people?

Is it any wonder people are walking away?

I know we all imagine Jesus differently—but the process I've described is not at all how the Bible portrays his ministry.

When we truly discover Jesus as presented in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), we see a more life-giving path to follow. Instead of a rigid formula, we find four anchors that hold us secure in our journey with Him.

We see a series of anchors that look more like this:

Belong > Believe > Become > Belay >

With Jesus, it all starts with the anchor of belonging.

Belong >

And by that, I mean his engagement with us starts with love.

In this book, I hope to demonstrate—based on what we see of Jesus in the Gospels—why I believe this.

For now, consider this:

For Jesus, meeting a new person was to love them. To see a person was to have compassion for them.

When Jesus invited someone to follow him, he invited people like us—selfish, full of doubt, carrying a lot of baggage—who didn't believe (at first) that Jesus was who he said he was.

To put it simply:

With Jesus, people belonged before they believed.

They were loved before they learned.

They were graced before they expressed gratitude.

They were shown mercy without merit.

"Jesus looked at him," the Bible says of a young man in Mark 10:21, "and loved him."

The theological term is prevenient grace, God's grace that precedes any human action.

Let me help you read that again. Prevenient grace is God’s grace that precedes any human action. It’s the grace of God that enables us to freely respond to His gift of salvation and love.

"For the grace of God has appeared," the Apostle Paul writes, "that offers salvation to all people" (Titus 2:11).

Believe >

As people grew in their knowledge and trust of Jesus, they began to gravitate toward the anchor of believing in Him, too.

For some, that takes a while.

For the disciples, it took years! Many of them didn't confess their belief in Jesus until His final hours before the cross. At the Last Supper (which was three years into their relationship with Jesus), they said, "This makes us believe that you came from God" (John 16:30).

To which Jesus replied (and I imagine a slight bit of exasperation in his voice), "Do you now believe?" (John 16:31, emphasis mine).

Become >

Yet as they followed Him for those three years, Jesus had been gently showing them not just how to behave — but how to become.

You see, the discipline of behaving (the standard American church way) is about external compliance—following rules. Being good. In contrast, the anchor of becoming (the Jesus way) is about internal transformation—being remade from the inside out.

Being remade to be less hypocritical and more merciful, less fragmented and more whole, less sin-prone and more holy, less foolish and more mature, less selfish and more like He created us to be—like Himself.

Belay >

Throughout the above transformation, Jesus kept sending his followers out. Yep. Even before they believed — or were still in the lifelong process of becoming — he sent them out.

He sent people out to love as he did.

He sent them to do the things he did.

He sent them to testify to the things he had done in their lives.

In other words, he called them to live life—not from a comfortable seat of watching—but in the servant role of belaying.

If you're not from Colorado, you may not know: belay is a climbing term.

To belay someone is to help them climb. It's a humble job. You're not the hero. You're not even climbing. You're holding the rope, managing the slack, ready to catch them if they fall. You're there to support, to serve.

When you belay, you literally become an anchor point for another person's journey—which makes this the perfect metaphor for our fourth anchor.

Therefore, in this book, "living on belay" will be our phrase for living on mission with Jesus—to go and lovingly serve others like He did for us.

Our syllabus

Here then is our course outline: we're going to challenge the existing formula:

Believe > Behave > Belong > Be Seated.

And we'll aim to walk along something closer to the path of Jesus:

Belong > Believe > Become > Belay >

Let's start where Jesus started—with the anchor of belonging.

Questions for Reflection

1. The author describes the standard American church path as "Believe > Behave > Belong > Be Seated." Which step in this process has been hardest for you personally? Where have you felt stuck or excluded along this path?
2. Jesus called his disciples to follow him before they understood who he was or what that meant. Think of a time when someone invited you into something before you were "ready" or "qualified." How did that experience shape you?
3. The chapter mentions that prevenient grace is "God's grace that precedes any human action." What would it mean for your daily life if you truly believed God's love and acceptance came before anything you do or don't do?
4. Read the phrase slowly: "You belong before you believe." How does your body react to those words? Do you tense up? Relax? Feel suspicious? Feel relief? What might God be trying to tell you through your reaction?
5. The path metaphor suggests we're all walking somewhere. Where do you feel like you are right now on your spiritual journey—just starting out, somewhere in the middle, feeling lost, or helping others along their way? What would it look like to take the next step forward?