(This review concerns Radical by David Platt. It is published by Multnomah Books and bears ISBN 978-1-60142-221-7)

Wow!

In this day and time when many of our Christian books deal with branding, marketing, and … well, soft-peddling so as not to offend, we are given an in your face, challenging book that is … well, … radical.

Platt takes the reader on a journey where church is not lived within the four-walled entities with said title; instead, church is lived out in the streets, on the field, and where one works.

I think the most astounding challenge for me was to read of a life of simplification and incarnation. In other words, Platt makes a case for Christians having less and doing more with that less by being Jesus to the world … even to the point of selling businesses and going on the foreign mission field, selling the home in the suburbs and moving to the city that one is trying to reach, and in doing so, to alter the Western values we Americans have grown up with into the foundational values as presented by the early Christians in the book of Acts.

To reiterate that I was deeply challenged would be a gross understatement. In fact, I tend to read three or four (or more) books at the same time, and while I was reading this one, I was also reading a book on church growth and another one on unChristian America. Because of these latter two book’s inclination toward branding, relevance, and (IMHO) compromise, I found Radical to be a breath of fresh air.

I give it a 5 out of 5 and challenge all Christians to read and heed.

I am enrolled to receive and review books for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group. I did not receive this particular book from them but it is one of their books and I gladly post my review.

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