Radical

A couple weeks ago, while Joel was attending meetings at the corporate office in Kansas City, I spent the day shopping a nearby shopping district, first stop being the Barnes & Noble bookstore.  I was in search of a book by a secular author, and situated on the same table was David Platt's Radical.  That, in itself, puzzled me.  I knew of the young mega-church pastor, having watched one of his sermons online, and I remembered that Platt has a compelling burden to share the gospel globally to billions of lost souls.  I picked up the book and read the subtitle:  "Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream," and the convicting power of the Holy Spirit began. I bought the book, and Joel and I are beginning to read through it together.  We pray that our hearts are prepared to receive the message.  

In the first chapter, Platt describes his collision course with the American church culture "where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings."  He noted that when Jesus left this earth, there were only about 120 followers who were doing what he told them to do.  Jesus wasn't interested in marketing himself to the masses; rather, he graphically explained the cost of becoming one of his disciples, which drove the crowds away.  And he was fine with that.  

Platt said he was faced with two big questions:

1.  "Was I going to believe Jesus?"

2.  "Was I going to obey Jesus?"

Platt's biggest fear, he said, was "that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him," as most people did in the first century.  That's the reason he wrote this book.  He believes this journey of faith extends beyond pastors and church leaders to the larger Christian community in this country.  "I am convinced that we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe.  And I am convinced we have a choice."  He challenges us to take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and consider what the consequences might be if we really believed him and obeyed him, i.e. radical abandonment to Christ.

And so our journey begins. . .