Ala. Megachurch Pastor Launches 'Radical' Ministry at Secret Church Event
Young Alabama megachurch pastor David Platt, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Radical that contrasts the American Dream with that of the Gospel message, launched a new resource ministry by the same name last week at a Secret Church event.
Platt, well-known for his passion for the persecuted Church and global disciple-making, announced on Good Friday to more than 50,000 participants of the live Secret Church simulcast – in 20 different countries – that the new ministry Radical.net was launched. Radical.net will help produce discipleship conferences and provide multilingual biblical resources with the goal to aid disciple-making around the world.
In his 2010 book Radical, Platt discusses why Christians in America do not look like the disciples in the Bible.
Platt told The Christian Post in an earlier interview that:
"…[W]ith the way we have a culture built on self, self-esteem, self-confidence. All of these things we begin to twist the Gospel into something that it is not. We make it look like us and fit into our lifestyle instead of adjusting our lifestyle to the Gospel," Platt had said.
"In the process we make following Jesus more American than it is biblical. As a result there seems to be a major disconnect between what it means to follow Christ in the first century and what it means to follow Christ in our definition in the 21st century America."
For Radical.net's first project, the ministry teamed up with LifeWay Christian Resources on Good Friday to produce the six-hour Bible study and time of prayer for persecuted believers in the event known as Secret Church.
And this fall, Platt will partner with popular evangelical pastor and Crazy Love author Francis Chan to host a conference that is part of a discipleship project called Multiply. The event is scheduled to take place Nov. 9-10, in Birmingham, Ala., at The Church at Brook Hills, and is sponsored by Radical.
"[W]e want our lives to count for the glory of God and the spreading of the Gospel among the nations. There is an urgency here when it comes to the reality of the Gospel and the reality of the world we live in," Platt had said to CP during the interview about his book Radical. "We want good, Gospel theology. But when we have good, Gospel theology that necessitates urgent missiology. It necessitates us to give our lives to making the Gospel known around the world. It doesn't add up to say we believe in the Gospel and not giving our lives to make it known."