Pastor: American Dream Clashes with Jesus' Teachings
Some of the members of Brook Hills have also sold their homes to give to the poor. Ordinary churchgoers are holding Bible studies in the projects to reach and help the needy living there. And the church has contacted the local Department of Human Resources to find out how many children need a home. The department said it needed 150 families to care for the children in its custody. Within two weeks, 160 families from the church signed up to foster or adopt the children.
Besides the "Radical Experiment," Brook Hills has also started something call the "Secret Church" where on a Friday night people study the word and pray from 6 p.m. to midnight. The idea is inspired by house church Christians who have to meet secretly to study the Bible. These Christians usually pack into small buildings where they study the Word hours on end devoid of technology and music. The some 1,000 people who attend the "Secret Church" do the same.
"For the sake of more than a billion people today who have yet to even hear the gospel, I want to risk it all," writes Platt. "For the sake of an increasingly marginalized and relatively ineffective church in our culture, I want to risk it all. For the sake of my life, my family, and the people who surround me, I want to risk it all."
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He states, "[T]he goal of the American dream is to make much of us; the goal of the gospel is to make much of God."
