Radical by David Platt

Radical by David Platt took me way longer to read than I expected.  That is not to say it isn't a great book; I just wasn't at a point where I could read it.  In my life there are times where I want to read a book, but it is like trudging through quicksand to even get through a chapter.  That is what this book was for the first year I had it.

One day, I picked it up to give it another shot.  It only took me a week to finish the book.  I love the message Platt delivers.  It is really easy for the American Church to forget how our faith started in struggle as well as there are others in the world still fighting the battle started by the early church.  Radical by David Platt really forced me to examine my own view of my faith.

Platt writes; "Soon I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture were success was defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings.  I was now confronted with a startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things that my church culture said were most important."  I totally identified with that struggle.  I go to a rather large Lutheran church in an affluent part of my state capital.  As a ministry leader it is really easy to fall into the trap of making the ministry about the numbers instead of about the individual kids and their stories.

David Platt challenged me to really examine the way I was thinking about the ministry I was leading.  He challenged me to keep the words of Christ in the forefront of my mind when making decisions, and the book encouraged me to not be afraid of living radically; that was the original plan anyway.