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Real Church: Does it exist? Can I find it?

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This book resonates with feelings I too have about the modern-day church. However, after finishing it, I didn't feel as though any real solutions were offered. Instead it feels sort of schizophrenic. (My apologies to Dr. Crabb, because I am very sympathetic with his position; this book just wasn't that helpful.) Dr. Crabb complains about chuches who "entertain" the congregation and then complains about churches he finds boring. He complains about teaching that focuses on the individual and then complains that there's not enough "spiritual formation," and so on. He is offended by "entertaining" music, but without it, I'm afraid he would then complain that it was uninspiring.

On page 83, he says he doesn't want to go to a church that teaches about how God's blessings can make one's life better (what I would call spiritual formation - understanding that better doesn't mean easier), or that brings God's kingdom to earth through loving activism, or that offers salvation to the world and moralizes the saved. Instead he wants a church where he "hears the music and learns to dance toward God and other people." But on pages 151-152, he says a "real church" teaches people to love God even when they feel unblessed, loves and encourages spiritual community, promotes social justice, and gets involved in personal evangelism. Confused? So was I.

Although he makes some really good points about problems within some evangelical churches, his closing statement about what a "real church" should look like presents four points that basically describe the typical evangelical church that he's complained about for the past 150 pages.

He states in the book that due to his travel schedule, he is unable to attend any one church on a regular basis and perhaps that is part of his problem. He appears to base his arguments on opinions, anecdotes, and superficial and sporadic church visits to various churches across the nation. He doesn't cite any studies to support his assertions, nor does he provide concrete ways for a church to effect solutions to the problems. And he doesn't seem to recognize that the majority of church services are a compromise created by a diverse and imperfect group of people who are struggling to maintain unity with fellow believers who all have different visions of what praising God looks like.

Two books that I found much more helpful are Simple Church and the Reveal study from Willow Creek. The bottom line is if you have a vision for the local church, don't read this book, but get off the sidelines, roll up your sleeves, and get involved in organizing it.

In the introductory section, Crabb offers several chapters that discuss key questions about the modern American church experience: Why have we lost interest? Why do so many Christians still attend and like church? What makes a gathering into a church? What causes a church to stop being one and turn into just a gathering of people?

Crabb divides the remainder of Real Church into three sections that discuss commons reasons people go to church that don't work for Crabb and marks of the church Crabb would like to join.

Why to Read Real Church:

* Crabb is a long-time Christian from a theologically conservative standpoint. So his observations can hold weight where readers might tend to dismiss concerns about the church as coming from a confused nonbeliever or a liberal.
* Crabb points out the good and bad of recent "church movements," such as the missional movement. His response is logical, not harsh.
* The author is willing to openly discuss his disappointment with the typical church pattern. By his own example, he points out the fallacy that disillusionment with the church is merely a trend among younger generations.

Cautions:

* Crabb places his discussion in terms of addiction; he says everyone's addicted to something, and the only good addiction is to God. I fear that some of his conclusions are a little stretched. For instance, he says that someone who overlooks offenses is addicted to feeling liked (89). This may be true in some cases, but it discounts the reality that people may choose to forgive because they appreciate God's forgiveness toward them.
* He talks often about hearing, singing, and dancing to heaven's music, but he doesn't really spell out what he means.
* He sometimes gives the impression that there's just two Christian views on satisfaction: we can obtain complete satisfaction in this life, or we must always face emptiness and loneliness in this life. But there is a moderate view that complete satisfaction will come only in heaven, but in the meantime, we can enjoy God's presence with us, and He can indeed bring joy and fulfillment to our emptiness and loneliness.
* Most of Real Church is Crabb's opinion. He uses the Bible to back up some of what he says but not most.
* Real Church is mostly theory. Crabb makes few suggestions for putting any of his ideas into practice.

Students and leaders who want to give more thought to the western church's typical way of doing things could find plenty of fodder for thought and discussion in this book. As long as readers are prepared to come up with their own ways to do something about the problems, they can probably find some things of value in Real Church.

Rachelle Dawson
No-Spoilers Book Reviews

Thomas Nelson has provided me with a complementary copy of this book.

At first glance of this book, my burning question was-"Am I going to make it through the first section of this book?" I also initially thought that I might lose interest like the author describes regular and faithful churchgoers are experiencing across the country. Dr. Crabb warns us early on that he is moving slow and goes to great lengths to provide a firm foundation of his beliefs. The introduction describes why people are losing interest in church, and what makes a gathering a church. Section I discusses why people should go to church and three answers that do not work for Dr. Crabb. Section II explores what kind of church we should want to go to. Finally, section III states what type of church the author wants to be a part of.

I doubt that it is merely a coincidence that I began reading this book in the midst of one of the ugliest experiences that I have ever had with fellow churchgoers. The situation was not handled well at all levels. Initially, I thought that it might not a good idea for me to read the book, because it may cause me to want to leave my church in search of more desirable circumstances. It did not. It did however help me want to confront my own self-redemptive strategies in this situation and other areas of my life. Real Church gave me real hope that God can and is changing me into the woman He wants me to be, and reminded me that He is very well aware of what is going on in His church.

The backbone of this book is written in the introduction where Dr. Crabb points out "Christians in community (Churchgoers) should be and could be the most potent force on the planet for personal transformation, for powerful evangelism, and for cultural influence, not mainly through political clout and certainly not through moralistic judgment but through offering a different kind of love than most people have ever seen or felt-a wise love that speaks with power into where people live."

The depth of thought and emotion which this book brings to the surface was both surprising and very encouraging. Don't mistake Dr. Crabb's book as the next church "Movement", formulas for obtaining God's favor, or a list of things to do in order to have an effective church ministry. It goes much deeper than those ideals. This book should encourage every believer in their lifelong walk with God. Statements such as: "Does going to church help people want to know God more or use God more?" Or, "Spirit of God let me hear the music of heaven with the ears of my soul. I never want to mistake the gospel for reasonably good news" drive home the point that life is all about living to please and worship our God.

As a whole this book is excellent. It does take a little time to make the most promising points, but it is worth wading through the early sections that do help bring a lot of clarity to the later chapters. Dr. Crabb is an author that seems to honestly deal with his humanness, and is humble enough to bring his imperfections to public attention. His style of writing and openness helps to normalize our lack of enthusiasm and sometimes utter contempt for formalized religion. It also helps to draw us closer to our Maker.

At a time when I and my family have finally settled down with a new church home, putting an end to a year and a half of church shopping, Dr. Larry Crabb digs deep into the issue of just what a real church is in his thought-provoking Real Church: Does it exist? Can I find it?

By guiding us through his own struggle with the lack of desire to even attend church -- his quest to find a real church -- Dr. Crabb exposes many of today's megachurches (though not by name) for what they really are: entertainers more than churches. In the words of Dr. Crabb, "Gatherings that mobilize resources to do good deeds do not, by doing so, become churches."

It seems today -- and I certainly experienced it in my own quest for a new church home after moving to Indianapolis -- that the churches Paul wrote to in Revelation 2:1-27 are still very much in existence in towns and cities across America today. Churches that are either lukewarm or that have lost their focus entirely. Churches that preach of prosperity and abundance, as if God promised us wealth and power just for following Him. So many of us attend church not for the reasons we should, but for our own selfish purpose. We're there to be entertained, to be made to feel good, to do our duty and stay in God's good grace, when we should be going to church to worship and celebrate our Lord.

God is a party happening. ... Church was designed by God to be the dance studio. ... A gathering becomes a church when a group of Christians together hear the music of Heaven's party and the laughter of God enjoying Himself and begin awkwardly dancing with the Trinity into the relationship and circumstances of life in order to bring Heaven's way of doing things to earth.
It can be so easy to go to church on Sunday so that we appear to be doing the right thing. To go because God wants us to go. To go because we want to go to Heaven. But can we go because we truly want to celebrate our Risen Savior? Is there even a church in your city that understands what the party is really all about?

As Dr. Crabb struggles to identify what a real church is, I find myself revisiting in my mind the many churches I have "shopped" over the past eighteen months, and comparing them to the real church that Dr. Crabb speaks about. There are real churches out there, but there are also real pretenders. In an enlightening and informative way, Dr. Crabb exposes the way of the pretenders, so that we might become part of the party.

This is a must read for every Christian (and non-Christian) who is struggling on his or her way down the path that God has set for us, wondering just what "religion" is all about, and whether the church is really doing the work of the Lord, or just trying to bring in more people and more money into the offering plate. A five-star commentary on the state of Christianity in America if ever there was one.

Average Joe is a member of Thomas Nelson's Book Review Blogger program [...]

Most books, in one way or another, are about giving answers.

Not so with Larry Crabb's new book Real Church. It doesn't give answers as much as it asks questions. Good questions, important questions, about the nature of what Jesus envisions the church to be. The kinds of questions that are rarely asked nowadays in the evangelical church, mainly because we assume we've already got those questions answered, and the questions we concern ourselves with now are about how to do everything we are already doing better. We ask "One service or two? Contemporary or traditional? Sunday School or small groups?"

This book, however, is about entirely different questions, questions that go much deeper: "Why are mature people who love God drifting away from church? Why do people who have little commitment to Christ enjoying church, and why are they not growing? Why is it not enough for a church to call people to belief in Christ and to lead moral lives? What are the marks of a church that creates people & community that are truly supernatural?"

In his preface, Larry himself writes:

What church would compel me to attend? What kind of church service would I hate to miss? What church would I feel privileged to be part of? I had a hard time coming up with an answer. So I decided to think more about it. I think best with a pen in my hand. Hence this little book.

By the end of the book, he hasn't come up with pat answers, but he has asked some penetrating questions (in fact, twelve of the chapter titles are questions, such as "So What Is It that Makes a Gathering a Church?" and "It Will Offer Salvation and Help for Righteous Living: Is that the Deep Change God Wants?").

Larry does, however, lay out four marks of a church that he would want to be part of:

1. Understands and encourages dynamic, transformative Biblical truth
2. Understands and encourages spiritual formation
3. Understands and encourages spiritual community
4. Is energized to do the missional work of the Kingdom

So, what did I get out of this book? Besides taking a ton of notes & quotes, Real Church gave me new perspectives and categories to think through what it truly means to "do church," as well as my own private spiritual formation. If you want to think seriously about the church and the Kingdom then read this book.

Title: Real Church: Does it exist? Can I find it? by Larry Crabb

Pages: 160.

Time spent on the "to read" shelf: About two months.

Days spent reading it: A week.

Why I read it: The senior pastor at my church recommended reading this book, and he also is preaching through a series based on some ideas in this book. I figured I'd get off to a good start and read what he was thinking through.

Brief review: Real Church is the attempt by Larry Crabb to respond the charge that church is not worth getting up for on Sunday mornings. People are usually alright following Jesus, but don't particularly care for his bride.

Crabb gives three (unfulfilling) reasons why people tend to say they go to church. Going to church will make my life better. Going to church will show you how Jesus wants you to change the world. Going to church is all about saving lost souls and helping the already saved to be visibly moral. These are alright reasons, but they still leave us wanting more.

Crabb then goes on to give 4 marks of a church that are helpful (to Crabb at least). I'll paraphrase. 1. Hungers for truth. 2. Desires spiritual formation (and recognizes we are all in need of spiritual formation). 3. Community-centered. 4. Engaged with those outside the church.

I thought this book was alright. My criticism is that Crabb is basing what Church should look like based on his felt need as a broken human. I love that Crabb is open about our brokenness (a good theology is man is based on the fact that we are sinful). But I don't think what the church should look like or feel like to us today should be based on our felt needs. I wish Crabb would have gone back to the Bible and worked from that superior source material to point us to what church should actually look like.

Not that Crabb is wrong, or has bad ideas, or anything like that. He is surrounded by a biblical worldview, and I actually resonate with a number of his ideas. But the solution to the fact that (post)modern people do not care for church should not be based on how we feel or what we think we need. Instead it should be based on what God actually intended for the church to be.

This book could have been a great discussion on what the church should be based on what God wants it to be. Instead it's a discussion on what church should be like based on what Larry Crabb (and many others who feel the same way as Crabb) wants it to be. Then again, I know this is not meant to be a theological discussion on the church. It is simply a discussion about the church based on years of discontent.

Does a church that I want to be a part of exist out there? Absolutely! I've been there. I've belonged to a church that completely modeled Acts 2:42-47. But I also recognize that was not the norm for churches. So I completely sympathize with people who are frustrated with the same old-same old church. There is something more out there for people stuck in that church. It can be found. Keep examining the New Testament and the (very broken) church it depicts and realize that God intends for something more, but he also works with what we have. He takes broken churches and still uses them to accomplish his work in this world. All you have to do is look through Romans or Corinthians to recognize that the early church was not picturesque even in the early days.

Alright, enough rambling. Real Church was an alright book, but I wanted it to be great. Kind of like the church Crabb describes.

Favorite quote: "I long to be a part of a church that somehow connects what we do when we meet together to who I am when I'm alone. And I want that connection to release the power that can transform me into a lover of God and a lover of others."

Stars: 3 out of 5.

Final Word: Honest.

Larry Crabb takes an objective approach to challenge accepted practices of the church today. As a conservative Christian, his questions and thoughts carry the weight of an insider. We all need to question our behavior and our direction and continue to challenge ourselves to a closer relationship with Jesus. I appreciate the book for that reason.
I also appreciate the challenge to abandon my addiction to myself. We all are to some degree. Real Church can exist when we confront that addiction and live differently. I recommend the book because it will challenge your thoughts and expose the dark places in your relationship with Christ. Definitely a challenging read.

Overall I like what this book has to say It is somewhat encouraging to see an established voice in evangelical Christianity discussing some of the same criticisms brought up by the emerging church movement. Yet Crabb exercises more caution than some of the emerging church writers. Crabb is very much about analyzing what we want, what our heart desires, for church and in many ways what our churches say they are about, then identifying the disconnect that exists between these desires and church practice in America. I believe he is bringing a level-headed voice to the discussion where too many tempers and too much pride have held sway.

My only criticism with the book is that "Real Church" isn't one of the more articulate expositions of these thoughts. Crabb seems to be writing to an audience that has not yet put words to these feelings and as such uses more simple, comforting, and cautious language. I believe this is good for an introduction to those who feel a disconnect in their personal church experience, but will offer little new material to engage those who have been exposed to a wider variety of emerging church writings.

This is the first book by author Larry Crabb (who has written twenty) that I have read and reviewed. Because the topic of "real church" resonates with me I was eager to examine Crabb's discussion on what makes a real church and how we can find it. The book is organized in five parts: the first part is organized into four chapters under the general topic of why he doesn't like going to church; Section 1 Why Should I Go to Church? Three Answers That Don't Work For Me; Section II What Church Do I Want to Go To:; Section III Marks of the Church I Want to Be Part Of; and the final section consisting of two chapters of a closing statement of what he wants in a church and a postscript. The book also includes a sample of Crabb's next book "66 Love Letters: Discover the Larger Story of the bible, One Book at a Time."

The first fourteen chapters describe Crabb's "disappointment and frustration" with church. Page xix gives a general statement of the church he does want to be a part of, but the reader waits until Chapter 15 for a partial answer to the question of what the church Crabb wants to belong to looks like.

Chapter 18 Mark #2: Respects the Necessary Ingredients in the Remedy for Addition is a clearly written chapter that provides the reader a place to develop the beginnings of understanding the author's point. Chapter 19: Helping Me Become More Like Jesus, Inside--Where It Counts is similarly well written and of value.

Crabb speaks as a psychologist, and the statement on page 15 illustrates his style throughout most of the book:

"...church was designed by God to be the dance studio. A gathering becomes a church when a group of Christians together hear the music of heaven's party and the laughter of God enjoying Himself and begin awkwardly dancing with the Trinity into the relationships and circumstances of life in order to bring heaven's way of doing things to earth."

What, exactly, does this mean? The book does not adequately explain. And I finished the book still not understanding exactly what "real church" looks like. For me, the answer is simple and straightforward, and the book added no clarity to any questions I might have had about some of the "happy-happy-joy-joy" churches we see on the landscape today.

I found the most valuable statement to the reader in Chapter 23, where Crabb states "I'm fighting a battle for my life that most churches don't help me fight. And yes, it is a battle that Christ's resurrection tells me I can win." I applaud the clarity of this statement, but cannot commend the rest of the book to any but the most ardent fan of Mr. Crabb's writing.
Real Church: Does it exist? Can I find it?

I have been struggling to read Real Church by Larry Crabb over the past week. I didn't really like this book. It was long, drawn out, pretty boring, and depressing.

Depressing in that I felt that I completely understood the author and what he was trying to say, and that I felt pity for him as he was missing his own point.

Larry Crabb is a very educated teacher/writer. And he is struggling, as many do, with the reality of becoming disinterested and disenchanted with church. I feel for him, I know the struggle, I've shared the struggle.

But his is more complicated.

He is so trapped in his 50+ years of conservative/evangelical Christianity with all of its terms/theologies/trappings that he is completely missing his own point.

He passionately writes about his struggles and desires with finding a church that he feels really 'gets it.' And then finds ways to discredit every church environment he has come across in his lifetime.

Unfortunately, I believe one of those is exactly what he is looking for.

He deals a lot with the emergent/missional church and quite readily admits that he does not fully understand it, and is at the same time afraid of it. He admits he has selfish motives about it, but they exist nonetheless. He is so focused on the views of his own church experiences as a conservative/evangelical that a part of him can not look at the missional church as anything but a new form of "social gospel."

This understanding is fundamentally flawed.

Larry Crabb talks at great length about the problems that he sees in the missional church not in what he actually experiences/witnesses/hears, but what he fears COULD happen or what he fears COULD be the motives of those involved in the movement.

The full title is Real Church: Does it Exist? Can I find it?

Yes it does exist. Yes he can find it. He did. And he immediately wrote it off. Many are trapped by a conservative/evangelical viewpoint that fears anything resembling a 'social gospel.' He is most certainly NOT alone in his views. He speaks for a great many who are stuck in a church they don't want to be in and don't feel they can leave because they are so paralyzed by fear of more liberal churches/movements that seem to be brimming with life in them...but because of what they 'know' there MUST be something wrong with it!

And that is depressing.



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