Something Needs to Change by David Platt

Over five years ago, Platt spent a week trekking in the Himalayas. He saw and experienced things that caused him to ask himself many questions about God, the church, and faith. He takes us along on his journey, sharing his observations, journal entries, and his thoughts on what he saw, relating his own spiritual awakening.

This is a good book for American Christians who have never visited areas of extreme poverty and need. He visited villages where girls had been sold into sex trafficking and children died of diseases easily cured in the US. He questioned why God allowed such suffering. He met scores of people who would never enter heaven and he wondered at the reality of hell. He met Christians who walked for hours to attend a church meeting and questioned his own commitment to the body of Christ.

Platt realized we often do not let the Word penetrate our hearts. He realized we don't need more teaching, more preaching, another book. We need an experience like he had in the remote mountains.

Platt doesn't presume to tell us what to do with our lives. He just wants us to ask the same questions of ourselves this trip caused him to ask. He also wants us to remember that Jesus is the ultimate hope for the world and that God has designed each one of us to spread that hope.

Reading this book doesn't mean you will feel compelled to go overseas to minister. Platt didn't. He became the head of a large mission organization and later the pastor of a church in Washington, DC. The challenge is to find where God wants you to share hope with others, whether it is across the world or across the street.

You can watch the book trailer here.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

David Platt is Pastor Teacher at McLean Bible Church in Washington, D.C. He served as Dean of Chapel and Assistant Professor of Expository Preaching and Apologetics at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and served at Edgewater Baptist Church in New Orleans. He became the lead pastor at The Church at Brook Hills, a megachurch in Birmingham, Alabama, at age 26. In 2014 he became the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, then began serving at McClean Bible Church in early 2017. He is the founder and president of Radical. He is the author of several books, including Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, and Counter Culture.

Multnomah, 224 pages.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.