Someone Worth Losing Everything For

Editor's Note: The following article is excerpted from David Platt's book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Multnomah Publishers, Inc.)

"The youngest megachurch pastor in history."

While I would dispute that claim, it was nonetheless the label given to me when I went to pastor a large, thriving church in the Deep South—the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. From the first day I was immersed in strategies for making the church bigger and better. Authors I respect greatly would make statements such as, "Decide how big you want your church to be, and go for it, whether that's five, ten, or twenty thousand members." Soon my name was near the top of the list of pastors of the fastest-growing U.S. churches. There I was… living out the American church dream.

But I found myself becoming uneasy. For one thing, my model in ministry is a guy who spent the majority of his ministry time with twelve men. A guy who, when he left this earth, had only about 120 people who were actually sticking around and doing what he told them to do. More like a minichurch, really. Jesus Christ—the youngest minichurch pastor in history.

So how was I to reconcile the fact that I was now pastoring thousands of people with the fact that my greatest example in ministry was known for turning away thousands of people? Whenever the crowd got big, he'd say something such as, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."¹ Not exactly the sharpest church-growth tactic. I can almost picture the looks on the disciples' faces. "No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We'll never get on the list of the fastest growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you."

By the end of that speech, all the crowds had left, and only twelve men remained.² Jesus apparently wasn't interested in marketing himself to the masses. His invitations to potential followers were clearlymore costly than the crowds were ready to accept, and he seemed to be okay with that.He focused instead on the few who believed himwhen he said radical things. And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction.

Soon I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings. I was now confronted with a startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things thatmy church culture said were most important. So what was I to do? I found myself faced with two big questions.