He has since written a sequel called Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God. If you've read the first one (or if you’ve read John Piper’s Let the Nations be Glad or Don’t Waste Your Life, for that matter) it's likely that nothing in Radical Together will come as a surprise. Rather, Platt takes the themes from Radical and explores the implications for congregations rather than individuals. He seeks to show “how a right understanding of the church fuels radical obedience  among Christians.” Churches, he rightly argues, aren’t meant to be consumer-oriented bubbles; instead, each Christian is to be equipped for the work of the church both locally and globally. This is an important affirmation of the historic Christian belief in the “priesthood of all believers,” and a critique of what is too often the norm: inward facing churches, full of consumers of religious goods and services, administered by professionals.

Platt writes about the difficulty in letting go of good programs in order to channel a church’s resources and attention more purposely based on what we believe to be true about the mission of God in Scripture. In the case of the church he pastors in Birmingham, Alabama, that means a particular focus on northern India. While understandably encouraging Christians and churches to take seriously the great needs overseas, I wish he would have done more to affirm both local and global ministry as equally vital expressions of Christian faith. As it is, one is left with the impression that the further away our neighbors are, the more worthwhile it is to seek to love them. I know from experience that even in churches with vibrant global ministries, local ministry does not happen automatically, and I suspect Platt's readers would be led to replace one kind of lopsided ministry with another. Also, though he affirms the importance of serving the poor, he particularly emphasizes sharing the gospel (verbally) with the “unreached.” Again, the influence of Piper is evident, though as a call for holistic ministry, I think it falls a bit short.

On the whole Platt’s book is a welcome critique of easy-breezy suburban religion and, not unlike Dietrich Bonhoeffer at a different time and place, it’s a new call for Christians to consider the cost of discipleship. And it’s a good reminder that “God doesn’t involve us in his global plan because he needs us; he involves us because he loves us.” It would simply be a shame to miss out.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. The introduction to the book is available free here, and also check out other resources including videos at the WaterBrook Multnomah site.

Each morning for the past six weeks I’ve been reading an entry from Devotional Classics, a collection of writings from great devotional writers down through history.

It’s compiled by Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith for Renovaré, a nonprofit group dedicated to spiritual formation among Christians of many kinds.

Foster wrote another book that I love, called Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith. I blogged about it in the spring of 2010, while living in Costa Rica among Catholics and evangelicals. Both that book and this one emphasize six main traditions, or streams, of the Christian faith -- each with its unique emphases, each containing both strengths and weaknesses.

This is my second time reading and reflecting on Devotional Classics, and if you follow me on Twitter you’re likely to see a tweet or two each morning from whatever I’ve just read. There is just so much good stuff to ponder. I was particularly challenged by one called “The Grace of Humility” by Jeremy Taylor, a guy who lived in England during the 1600s.

So as a public record of what I’m working through, and hopefully as an encouragement to you, here are some quotes from that chapter on humility, a perpetually difficult and unpopular virtue, but one we’d all do well to cultivate -- perhaps especially here in the blogosphere.

“If you realize that you are not wise, do not be angry if someone else should agree.”

“Do not let your praise be the intended end of what you say. If it so happens that someone speaks well of you in the midst of a conversation, you are not to stop the conversation. Only remember this: do not let praise for yourself be the design of your conversations.”

“Do not let your good reputation be the object of your gaze. Use it as an instrument to help your neighbor, but do not use it for your own gain.”

“Some people spend their time dreaming of greatness, envisioning theaters full of people applauding them, imagining themselves giving engaging speeches, fantasizing about having great wealth. All of this is nothing but the fumes of pride, exposing their heart’s true wishes. Although there is nothing directly evil in this, it is the offspring of an inner evil and has nothing whatsoever to do with the obtaining of humility.”

“Take an active part in the praising of others, entertaining their good with delight. In no way should you give in to the desire to disparage them, or lessen their praise, or make any objection. You should never think that hearing the good report of another in any way lessens your worth.”

“It is beneficial to focus on the strengths of those around us in order to see our weaknesses more clearly.”

“If you have made a mistake, or an oversight, or an indiscretion, confess it plainly, for virtue scorns a lie for its cover.”

“Give God thanks for every weakness, fault, and imperfection you have. Accept it as a favor of God, an instrument to resist pride and nurse humility. Remember, if God has chosen to shrink your swelling pride, he has made it that much easier for you to enter in through the narrow way!”

“Humility begins as a gift from God, but it is increased as a habit we develop. That is, humility is increased by exercising it.”

I'd love your thoughts on these quotes from Jeremy Taylor. What do they mean for you? When blogging, do you consider whether you're cultivating humility? Are blogging and humility mutually exclusive? Would Jeremy Taylor have a blog, were he alive today?

In my review of An Evangelical Social Gospel? by Tim Suttle for the Englewood Review of Books I suggested that in our search for a third way beyond extremes we look beyond our culture’s current Christian polarities and be willing to listen and learn from brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world. I named two worth listening to from the region with which I’m most familiar: Rene Padilla and Samuel Escobar, both from Latin America. Whether you’ve read their work or not, you may enjoy this video. Speaking at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization last October in Cape Town, South Africa, Padilla and Escobar here recount key moments in the history of the development of an evangelical theology for Latin America, particularly in reference to the Lausanne movement. The audio level is a little low, but nothing headphones can’t solve.

About nine minutes into the clip, Rene Padilla outlines three concerns that he believes are shared by many in Latin America. I can imagine some of the delegates at the congress squirming in their seats, at least for the second and third concern he mentions.

1. Discipleship: Jesus didn’t send his disciples to make converts, but to make disciples who would obey everything he taught
2. Globalization: specifically, the globalization of an “unjust economic system” that is “destroying people” all over the world, but especially the poor
3. Ecology: if ecological destruction continues as it is, who knows what the future will hold for our children and grandchildren?

Samuel Escobar also mentions the trend towards Latin America sending its own missionaries to Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and that in many cases they are doing so with an “integral” or “holistic” approach to mission and faith -- “the only possible way to do mission in those places.”

At any rate, consider this an addendum to my suggestion in the review.

A boy looks in the window at Semillas Biblioteca, a library in Diriamba, Nicaragua

During my first two visits to Costa Rica, both of which were way too brief, I became really curious about Costa Rica's neighbor to the north, Nicaragua. The two countries share a big border, and since CR is comparatively wealthy and Nicaragua is comparatively poor, this creates a bit of tension between the two, as you can imagine (not that we in the US know anything about tensions with a poor neighboring country).

So when I went back to Costa Rica last year to spend two months with my friends at the Association for Development through Education, I was sure to schedule a bus trip to Nicaragua. I lined up visits and interviews for three potential magazine story ideas, not sure which, if any, would ever be published.

Pastor Francisco outside his church

One was a visit to La Chureca in the capital city of Managua, the largest garbage dump in Central America. There, a pastor who was a friend of a friend of a friend walked me through a labyrinth of plastic and sheet metal and introduced me to men and women who were part of a church he pastored until recently.

On another day I caught a minibus to the nearby town of Diriamba, where some friends of a friend had started that town's first public library to nurture an appreciation for learning and reading and to provide young people with a safe place to grow up. The visits to both La Chureca and Diriamba were humbling and encouraging, as I witnessed Christians serving those in need and doing so faithfully, without a whole lot of fanfare.

But for various reasons the magazine idea that in fact came to fruition was a visit to Hogar Belén, a home for disabled and abandoned children just outside Managua, and part of a nonprofit called Mustard Seed Communities. It has been published in the May/June edition of PRISM, and the PDF is available here.

A boy at the clinic at Hogar Belén

I'm glad this story came together because I think it demonstrates a striking contrast between prevailing views of what is considered success -- even in church and ministry among the poor -- and what Jesus has to say about serving "the least of these" with mustard seed-like faith.

The disabled, abandoned children of Hogar Belén don't need any more of the CEO-type leaders that our evangelical culture is intent on churning out. And they certainly don't need any more egotistical political leaders who put up year-round Christmas Trees to remind citizens of all they have to celebrate because of him. My hunch (or hypothesis) is that what the children of Hogar Belén have found is in fact what Christ calls each of us uniquely and all of us collectively to be. But you'll need to read the article to see what that is. Then I'd really love to hear your thoughts.

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I kept that in mind as I read The Fruitful Life: The Overflow of God’s Love Through You by Jerry Bridges. He writes books that urge deeper understandings and practices of discipleship. I read his classic The Pursuit of Holiness on a trip to Africa several years ago and found it to be a tremendous challenge to the sort of haphazard attitude toward discipleship that I can easily fall into.

This book is about the fruit of the Spirit. In recent years I have come to see just how relational the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives really are, and I have been trying to read the Bible and other books through that lens. Too often, when it comes to application time at the end of the sermon we are asked to examine what’s going on inside our heart and mind, and whether we have been spending our quiet time with God, and based on these questions to gauge our spiritual health. There’s nothing wrong with this sort of introspection. But if the Spirit of God is alive in us, the fruit isn't just going to show up in these very personal, private ways. It’s going to turn our relationships upside down. Changed hearts will mean changed lives, and our lives necessarily involve other people.

To be honest, I expected to have to read this into Bridges’ reflections, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he is eager to make this point as well. He writes that the fruit of the Spirit is both formational and relational, and that “several of these character traits have a definite outward focus to other people� (p. 8). In fact, in Bridges’ work with the college ministry of The Navigators, he says that they are intentional about making sure that when they help to lead students in discipleship it always involves serving others. Discipleship does not happen in a vacuum.

Chapter by chapter, character trait by character trait, Bridges leads us through reflections that both challenge and encourage us as we seek to be good soil in which the fruit of the Spirit can grow in our lives. The Spirit’s work takes root in the deepest places of our being, transforming us at the core, but it doesn’t stop there. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control will eventually begin to emerge in the lives and communities of transformed people, and the world will never be the same.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."