Radical Faith = Radical Commitments

I have recently read the book Radical by David Platt. Our entire church read the book along with a six-week sermon and small group series. To say that it has changed my life is an understatement. It has changed they way that I look at everything in life.

Two weeks ago my family made five commitments.

1. Read through the entire Word.
This is probably the commitment that scared me the most. My four children make it difficult to spend any length of time in a 'quiet time'. I've found a couple of devotional books designed specifically for moms with small children and they were working for me...but now I've just made the commitment to read the entire bible in a year...that's about five chapters a day. Eleven days into it now, I'm loving it. My children interrupt some days more than others, but it's working.

2. Pray for the entire World.
We're doing this through Operation World. I love reading about specific things that I can pray for each country. The girls are also starting to ask each night at bedtime, "Mama, what country are we praying for today?"

3. Sacrifice our money for a specific purpose.
This is the one that we had to really brainstorm about. The word "sacrifice" kept giving me trouble. We can decide to give a certain about of money to a number of great charities, but where's the sacrifice. You know....the bills are paid for the month, this much is left over, so let's give it here. Not really a sacrifice. So we decided to first, not go grocery shopping for one week each month. It's amazing how many suppers and lunches you can make when you think you have no food in the house. We then chose a Compassion child to sponsor. As we thank Jesus for our (sometimes interesting combination) supper each night that week, we pray for Ama and her family who might be going to bed hungry. The money we would have spent on groceries goes to our sponsor child and family. This week was our first week to try this....It's Thursday now, and I can definitely say that the cupboards are getting quite bare, but none of us are hungry. And we've spent the entire week praying, talking, and thinking about a seven year old girl in Ghana.

4. Spend time in another context.
We committed to spend one week, 2% of our time in Gospel ministry outside of Middle Tennessee. I'm somewhat limited to where and when I can go since I'll be nursing a baby for the next year, but I'm really excited that my husband will get to go anywhere. He could go to Africa, or Belgium, or Mexico, or even just Mississippi or Seattle...but I'm excited to see how God is going to change the other 98% of our time because of this 2%.

5. Commit my life to a multiplying community.
We're very excited to join forces with Life Point Church to serve God and change our community.

I'm so excited to see what God teaches up through these commitments and what other commitments he shows us along the way.

So if you've not read David Platt's Radical, I highly recommend it, but just be ready for your world to be ROCKED!