Learning To Live As An Exile

About the Author

This month, we’re grateful to learn from Clint Leavitt, pastor of Midtown Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona, friend of Mission ONE, and author of Cockroaches, God, Death, and Mangoes: The True Story of Bikonzi Moise. Clint writes at the intersection of theology, culture, and everyday faith, helping the Church navigate what it means to follow Jesus with humility and hope in a changing world.

In this article, Clint explores what it means for Western Christians to live as exiles, no longer at the cultural center, yet still called to faithful presence, deep hope, and love for the places they inhabit.

Why This Matters to Mission ONE

At Mission ONE, we partner with local pastors, leaders, and missionaries who serve within their own cultural contexts and are deeply rooted in the communities God has called them to love. While they are not cultural outsiders, many live as spiritual exiles: following Jesus in places where His name is little known, misunderstood, or has never been heard at all.

Their faithfulness reflects the same biblical posture Scripture commends: settling into their communities, seeking the flourishing of their people, and bearing witness to the Kingdom of God through long-term presence and hope-filled lives. Clint’s reflection invites the Western church to recognize this shared calling and to learn from the example of our global partners, whose quiet, steady faith points us toward a deeper way of living the gospel wherever God has placed us.

Imagine this: it’s a Sunday morning in November where you live. The air is cool and crisp, and the sun is out, melting the frost and warming the chills from the dark night. It’s a sweater-weather type of day, one of those mornings where you remember, Oh yeah–this is why I live where I do.

This morning, as usual, you are heading to church–but you’re also excited about the rest of the day. You’ve got no errands to accomplish, no work to catch up on, no kids’ sports or birthday parties or family gatherings. Just a wide-open, glorious Sunday. For some of you, this might actually seem like an impossibility, but at least imagine it with me.

And naturally, right in line with the theme of the morning, you want to keep the good vibes rolling, so you stop at your coffee shop of choice to catch a warming morning buzz. You walk in the space with a smile on your face and a brightness in your eyes, which scan the menu with a pleasant curiosity matched by the pleasant “Welcome” from the tattooed barista behind the counter. After a peaceful internal deliberation, you settle on your order, step to the counter, and repeat those delightfully caffeinated words off the menu. Then, after inputting the order and setting up the card reader, the barista asks the most casual, inevitable question in our contemporary small talk:

“So…what are you doing today?”

Suddenly, your chest tightens just a little. You already know how this will go. See, you could say, “I’m going to a pottery class with friends,” and the barista wouldn’t bat an eye. You could say, “I’m meeting my family for the millennial religion called brunch,” and they’d flash you a smile and ask where you’re going. You could say, “I’m doing goat yoga at the park with my book club,” and they will be super encouraging in their reply. All those options feel safe, normal, socially acceptable. But none of them would be the truth.

What if you said the truth?

“Well, it’s Sunday morning, so I’m going to church. Every Sunday I gather in a room with people who follow Jesus. We proclaim that he died and rose again. We sing songs…some of us raise our hands, some of us sing off-key. We read scriptures that have been around for thousands of years and try to embody the news that Jesus is Lord over us, our city, and the world, and that He is ushering in a Kingdom that will make right all things.”

Silence.

Deep Breath.

“Also, can I do oat milk in that latte?”

***

In our contemporary, Western context, if you say you’re going to church, or say you’re a Christian, something often shifts in conversation dynamics. People use a polite but awkward, “Oh…nice…” before trailing off into silence; they avoid eye contact; most folks have no idea how to respond. In our time, mentioning Christianity is a remarkably effective way to shut down small talk. Nearly half of U.S. adults prefer avoiding religious discussions altogether.

And that’s largely because of the assumptions often made about Christians. Barna’s 2007 research–expanded in David Kinnaman’s 2012 book unChristian–indicates 75% or more of non-Christians would use words like judgmental, hypocritical, old-fashioned, and too political to describe Christians. In an era where Christian Nationalism continues to soar, and many Christians have embraced a power dynamic often contrary to the mode of Christ, one can hardly blame non-Christians for having this perception. While your barista probably won’t explicitly use these words to describe you, it’s likely they’re thinking it. Don’t even get me started on saying you’re a pastor. Pro tip: if you don’t want to talk to the person next to you on a plane, just tell them you’re a pastor. Guaranteed hours of silence.

What we often don’t realize is that this dynamic, in the West, is pretty new. For most of Western history (that is, in Europe and the United States) we lived in what historians and sociologists refer to now as Christendom. Christendom was a cultural framework where Christianity sat at the center of society, where Christian ethics often shaped public life and where the Bible and the story of Jesus were widely known, even by those who didn’t fully believe them. Christianity held cultural power and influence. Major universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale were founded around Christian convictions, hospitals and public services were shaped by Christian teaching, and Christians were trusted and had a meaningful voice in the public square. While historians and Christians debate the positive and negative effects of marrying Christianity with power like this (I tend to lean more negatively in my personal view), this was the status of Christianity for upwards of 1,000 years in the global West.

Things began to change around the Enlightenment, a time of massive scientific development and intellectual development. Long-held assumptions about faith and the Bible were questioned. Skepticism and doubt grew. Fast forward to the present, and while Christianity is exploding in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the West is living in what many call a post-Christendom culture.

Some stats that indicate this:

This is why, when people discover you’re a Christian, it can feel like they’ve encountered a unicorn. They didn’t know that they existed in the wild!

As Christianity has lost cultural power, its beliefs and ethics have been pushed out of the public square. You’re free to believe whatever you want, just don’t bring it into your public life. Keep it private. Keep it personal. Keep it to yourself. Theologian Lee Beach puts it this way:

“The church is one of those former power brokers who once enjoyed a place of influence at the cultural table, but has been chased away from its place of privilege and is now seeking to find where it belongs amidst the ever-changing dynamics of contemporary culture.” -Lee Beach, The Church in Exile: Living in Hope After Christendom

In many ways, Christians in the U.S. have become exiles. That’s not a word many of us are used to using, especially those of us who’ve grown up with comfort, privilege, and cultural belonging. But it’s an apt description.

In the strictest sense, exile means being forcibly displaced from your home and having to live somewhere that doesn’t feel like home. Refugees and asylum seekers know this reality deeply. Exile is disorienting. You lack influence. You face social barriers. You’re seen as strange or suspect. The dominant values run counter to your own. But exile is more than physical displacement. Jewish-Hungarian author Paul Tabori describes exile as the feeling of “being an outcast within one’s own country.”

That’s increasingly the Christian experience in America. Less influence; more barriers; viewed as strange, with values that no longer align with the dominant culture. Exile is anytime what once felt like home no longer does. Anytime the safety and security you relied on is pulled out from under you. Which leaves those of us living in the West–these Christian unicorns–with an important question:

How do we live as exiles in the world now?

This is the most urgent missional question of our time. Thankfully, we aren’t the first ones to ask it. As it turns out, exile isn’t a fringe concept in the Scriptures: it’s central to the story God has always been telling. Modern Christians aren’t facing a brand-new dilemma: God’s people have always known what it is to live displaced, disoriented, and on the margins. From Israel in Babylon to the early church under Rome, exile has been the normal condition of faithful people more often than not, and it remains the norm for much of the global church today. In fact, Christians throughout history have repeatedly reached for the word exile to describe their place in the world. Which means Scripture doesn’t leave us guessing about how to live missionally when home no longer feels like home. And one of the clearest, most grounded visions for life in exile comes from an ancient letter written to God’s people far from home: Jeremiah 29.

Jeremiah writes his letter to people who are confused, angry, disoriented, and desperate for a way forward. They have been ripped from their homeland by Babylon, taken away in chains to a place entirely foreign to them. They no longer reside at the center of culture; they are no longer shaping the dominant cultural narratives; and now they are living in a place that feels foreign, hostile, and spiritually confusing.

Sound familiar?

In Jeremiah 29:4-14, God gives the exiles a vision for faithful life that is neither withdrawal (as many of our Christian subcultures exhibit) nor conquest (as a Christian Nationalist framework might describe). It is something far more demanding, but far more hopeful. God calls them to settle in, seek the flourishing of the city, and signify a deeper hope by their lives.

1. Settle In: Put Down Roots Where You Are

God’s first instruction to the exiles is remarkably ordinary:

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.” –Jer. 29:5-6, NRSV

In other words: make yourselves at home.

This is not what the exiles wanted to hear. Remember, for them, Babylon was the enemy. The oppressor. The culture that rejected everything they believed. The Psalmist describes the anger that fueled their view towards the Babylonians in graphic detail in Psalm 137–read at your own risk (for a deeper examination of a healthy approach to this Psalm, see this teaching)! Surely God would want them to keep their distance, or perhaps even rally forces to resist Babylon. Instead, God tells them to move in.

Followers of God are not called to be tourists in their culture, even in exile. We are residents. Even when a place feels uncomfortable, or even outright hostile, we commit ourselves to knowing it, loving it, and caring for it. And that kind of commitment requires attention. To build houses, you have to know the land. To plant gardens, you have to understand the soil.

Faithful presence begins with listening. Before Christians speak, critique, or attempt to influence, we are called to learn. To understand the rhythms, fears, hopes, and longings of the people and places we inhabit. In exile, we do not presume expertise: we practice curiosity.

So here are the missional questions exile asks of us:

Settling in does not mean compromising faith. It means committing to a place in such a way that we know it and can serve it well. This is the missional call of the follower of God in exile.

2. Seek the Flourishing of the City: Work for Shalom

But God doesn’t stop with presence. He presses the exiles toward purpose:

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” -Jer. 29:7, NRSV

The word translated “welfare” here is shalom, a thick, biblical word that means holistic flourishing: social, economic, relational, spiritual, and ecological wholeness. This is why Jeremiah speaks about so many different elements of Babylonian way of life: from gardens to homes, relationships to marriages, the practices being invoked are comprehensive and integrative

The mission of God in exile is not limited to convincing people of theological ideas, or simply getting people to pray a prayer or show up to a worship service. It is about making the places we inhabit better for everyone, at every level of the society, especially those most vulnerable. God’s followers are called to witness to God’s presence and work through their care about housing, education, healthcare, beauty, justice, sustainability, and meaningful work. None of these are add-ons to faith: they are expressions of it.

Wendell Berry names this vision with clarity:

“If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety… we would begin to turn to our communities—not only human neighbors but the water, earth, and air… all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.” -Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace

This reframes exile entirely. Being a minority is not a liability, it is a missional calling, one which the Christian church has picked up as its identity across history and the globe. Christians are to see themselves as exiles, and as such, see themselves as those who seek the flourishing of the place they reside, not as a means to an end, but as the expression of the coming Kingdom in the midst of the human cultural project.

This helps to sharpen our missional questions in the West:

Exiles do not withdraw from responsibility. They lean into it and seek flourishing precisely there.

3. Anchor Yourself in Hope: Remember Where Home Is

Finally, by the end of this passage, Jeremiah refuses to let the exiles forget something crucial: they are not meant to lose themselves in Babylon. God promises that exile is not the end of the story:

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” -Jer. 29:11 NRSV

God’s followers are certainly people who settle in fully to the place they reside, but they never forget where home ultimately is.

The New Testament uses a helpful metaphor to describe this tension: ambassadors. An ambassador learns the language, customs, and relationships of the place they inhabit, but they are always shaped by the priorities of another kingdom. Early Christians understood this missional approach deeply. The second-century Epistle to Diognetus describes them this way:

“They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners… they obey the laws, and yet surpass the laws by their lives… they are poor, yet make many rich.”

Christians live deeply in the places they reside, but they do so differently. Not louder, not more powerful, but distinctly, winsomely, and invitationally.

Which leaves some final missional questions:

Living Faithfully Where You Already Are

During the experience of exile, God doesn’t give the exiles a strategy for regaining power through Jeremiah. He gives them a vision for faithful presence in exile.

Settle in.
Seek the flourishing of the city.
Signify hope.

Three distinctives that the American and Western church are in desperate need of embodying in our cultural moment. Exile is not a failure, not is it a time to disengage or dominate. It is a time to press in, for it is precisely where God’s work is often most fruitful and effective.

May we in the West learn from our global brothers and sisters connected to Mission ONE, who powerfully embody this exilic missional spirit. May we become faithful in our own exile.