On Being Radical

A few weeks ago during a sermon, our pastor mentioned Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt. He actually said NOT to read the book. It would "mess with you." I think that's true for people for whom Christianity is just one compartment of their lives (If that's really possible...Ahem.), but for those of us who are sold out and committed disciples of Jesus, it is a challenge for us to step it up a notch and live our lives in a manner consistent with Jesus's teaching in the Gospels and the example of the church in Acts.

In a nutshell, Platt makes that case—which is not difficult to do—that the church today doesn't look any different from the world around us and that we have applied worldly principles to the operation of our churches. He writes:

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 that we have a choice.

You an I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him.

The majority of the book is focused on taking an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and at believers who have lived consistently with His teachings. The last chapter is a challenge for the reader to test the claims of the book. It's called The Radical Experiment. Platt says:

I invite you to see if radical obedience to the commands of Christ is more meaningful, more fulfilling, and more gratifying than the American dream. And I guarantee that if you complete this experiment, you will posses an insatiable desire to spend the rest of your life in radical abandonment to Christ for his glory in the world.

The challenge is for one year, and it consists of five components. He dares the reader over the next year to...
1. pray for the entire world
2. read through the entire Word
3. sacrifice your money for a specific purpose
4. spend your time in another context
5. commit your life to multiplying community

When I finished the book last Sunday afternoon, I committed to the experiment, and I prayed for God's grace to complete it. You see, I've made grand plans and commitments before, and I haven't kept them. I don't want that to happen this time. In fact, as I shared in class this morning, I prayed some months ago that I was tired of making mud pies! I think this commitment is the beginning of the answer to that prayer. For the purposes of accountability and for reasons that will become clear as I continue, I'm going to share my plans for the challenge here.

1. Pray for the World.
The plan is simple. I followed Platt's suggestion and ordered the Operation World book. It is a prayer guide to the nations that is an atlas of sorts providing information about Christianity around the world and specific prayer requests based on circumstances. It is dated so that you simply go to the page for today's date and pray for the featured province or country.

2. Read through the entire Word.
I am going to make a confession here. With all of my study and commitment to knowing God's Word, I have not yet managed to read through the entire Bible from beginning to end. I cannot count the number of times I have read Genesis and Exodus! I have read through the New Testament many times. I have bought one-year Bibles, 90-day Bibles, chronological Bibles—you name it, I have tried it. I had gotten most of the way through Numbers in The Message when I made this new commitment. I decided rather than continuing on, I would start over again in my new ESV Bible. (Edited 6/14/10: The Spirit has been prodding me that I don't have to start over, so I'm going to continue on reading in The Message.) As I said, by the grace of God, I'm going to do this!

3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose.
There is actually more to it than that. He makes the point that our hearts follow our money, and he suggests that experiment participants forgo luxuries for a year for the purpose of giving sacrificially to a gospel-centered, church-focused, tangible need that you can personally serve alongside.

I am praying for God's direction as to what ministry I should give money to, but giving up luxuries is for me a no-brainier. I know this is something that I need to do because of my personal struggles. In fact, even since I made the commitment, I made a couple of purchases that, after the fact, I realized, I didn't really need. They were in reality luxuries. By God's grace, I will continue to improve in my efforts to meet this particular challenge.

4. Spend you time in another context.
I have no idea how I'm going to do this. It is a God-sized task. I work full-time in a brand new ministry, and I have a family with young children. I don't know how I'm going to fit in a mission trip, but I serve a God of miracles, and I have placed this one in His hands!

5. Commit your life to a multiplying community.
In explaining this challenge, Platt says,

...look for the best avenue within [your] community of faith to be about making disciples. In the church I pastor, this happens primarily through small groups...Jesus placed a fundamental priority on disciple-making relationships, and such relationships cannot play a merely supplemental part in our Christian lives.

My small group is my Sunday school class, and this is the group to whom I am committing. I have been faithful to be prepared to teach on Sunday mornings, but I have not given of myself to the individual members of my class as I have wanted to—much less in a Christ-like manner. I have intended to make more phone calls, send more notes, make meals, etc., and I have failed miserably in this. So again, by the grace of God, I am going to "commit [my] life to a people who need [me] and whom [I] need." The individualistic nature of the American dream has caused us to devalue community and subsequently the Body of Christ, and I am as guilty as anyone in this. I am one of those people who is often happiest by myself, but this is not God's design for His church, and I want to please Him.

So there it is, written for the world to see, so to speak. Please pray for me as I embark on this experiment that God would give me success and that I would find a satisfaction in Him that I have never known before. I encourage you to join the experiment too.