Book Review: Radical Together

I was fortunate enough to get an early review copy of Radical Together, a sequel of sorts to Radical.  I offered my thoughts on Radical just a few days ago and many of my thoughts apply to both of these books.  As with the first I absolutely recommend this book.  Platt is a young pastor at 32 and hopefully has many years ahead of him as a prolific writer, because I love what he has to write.  Radical Together avoids many of the sins of typical Christian books and has many strengths.  In this review I’ll hit a few of the things that stuck out to me.

The book is short – coming in at 120 pages from Introduction to Conclusion.  The end has a lot of great discussion material and questions for small groups based on each of the six chapters.  The book is very readable.  I read it this afternoon between taking care of kids and straightening the house.  Don’t mistake its easy readability for a lack of depth; in fact I believe that’s one of this book’s strengths.

Depth and great delivery

This book has theological and biblical depth.  It’s not shallow and is clearly informed by a broad understanding and application of Scripture.  Whereas some books take one verse and twist and torture it until they get a book’s worth of their vapid thoughts down flimsily masquerading as Biblical truth, it’s clear Platt’s reflections are the result of much study, prayer, and living as a Christ-follower.  He isn’t interested in easy answers or asking questions just to sound profound.  Platt is on the journey of trying to follow Jesus for real in America.  That carries some questions and difficulties with it – and he addresses them not with a simple sense of guilt or emotional volunteerism.  He understands that the gospel is at the core of what it means to be a Christian – and that needs to show up in all we do.  Radical focused on the lives of individuals, and Radical Together explores how the gospel can and should impact the life of the local church.

Questions every church should be asking

Platt’s purpose for this book is to get every church asking “How can we in the church best unleash the people of God in the Spirit of God with the Word of God for the glory of God in the world?” (p.3)  In working through this question Platt offers six ideas – the topics of each chapter.  They are:

1. One of the worst enemies of Christians can be good things in the church.
2. The gospel that saves us from work saves us to work.
3. The Word does the work.
4. Building the right church depends on using all the wrong people.
5. We are living – and longing – for the end of the world.
6. We are selfless followers of a self-centered God.

Some of those ideas are worded provocatively but I assure you there’s actual meaning to them.  As he explores these ideas Platt builds a biblical case for challenging the church and he does it with equal measures of irenic grace and brutal honesty.

A simple church, focused on the right thing

Platt questions many of the things that are taken for granted in American Evangelicalism.  He doesn’t do it in a pot-stirring, rabble-rousing, I’m-just-asking-questions-and-being-contrary-but-don’t-really-have-anything-to-offer kind of way.  Instead Platt shares his own journey as someone asked by a rich megachurch to be the pastor:

To be honest, I hate budget season.  As a pastor, I believe that is when the church comes face to face with how prone we are to give our resources to good things while ignoring great need.  Christians in North America give, on average, 2.5 percent of their income to their church.  Out of that 2.5 percent, churches in North America will give 2 percent of their budgeted monies to needs overseas.  In other words, for every hundred dollars a North American Christian earns, he will give five cents through the church to a world with urgent spiritual and physical needs.  This does not make sense. (p.16)

As a result of that process, Platt’s church actually downsized its ministry budgets, cancelled some planned property improvements, and drained a large savings account to provide money for ministries around the world.   This isn’t shared in a self-aggrandizing way – Platt is simply sharing how this journey has played out at his church. 

As I read this book I was reminded of a book I read a few years ago, Simple Church.  The general idea was that for churches to really build disciples they need to focus on disciple-making and cut out a lot of programs that may be “good” but ultimately distract from the main purpose of the church.  Platt takes the idea a bit farther, though, and I think in the right direction.

Spend less time at church

Platt states gracefully, biblically, and effectively what I amateurishly fumbled at in an old blog post.  Many churches would be better off if more of their people spent less time attending and maintaining church programs, and more time bring the gospel into their contexts.  One thing they did was outsource their VBS to individual homes, so instead of inviting lots of people from the community to come to the church campus for a gigantic program, the church equipped families to host VBS-like programs in their communities.  These allowed them to build real relationships with the people in their neighborhoods, gave these individuals the responsibility and privilege of making disciples and spreading the gospel – and did it more effectively than yet another program at the church would have.  That’s not to say a VBS at the church would be bad per se – but Platt is happy his church “decided to stop planning, creating, and managing outreach programs and [started] unleashing people to maximize the ministry opportunities God had already planned and created for them” (p. 66).

You’ve got to read this book

As with Radical, I can’t recommend this book enough to anybody who considers themselves a follower of Christ.  It is a fantastic addendum to Radical and the logical followup  I am excited for my wife Janelle to read this so the two of us can discuss the implications for our own lives.  In it are many of the ideas she and I have spent so long talking about.  This book lays out clearly some of the very things that led me to leave a career in ministry. 

You owe it to yourself to read this book.  But be warned; it will force you to face some of the questions and doubts you try to avoid when you feel them bubbling up.  It will give a loud voice to that quiet one inside you that wonders if there’s something more to being a Christian than going to a great church, being a part of a Bible study, tithing, and sponsoring a Compassion Child.  And it may be the voice that takes your Christianity from a frustrating hobby to a radical lifestyle.

I was provided with an advance copy of this book by Multnomah Press in order to review it.  But everything I just said is still true.  The book is like nine bucks.  My integrity costs at least triple that.