Real Church – does it exist? can I find it?

Book Review – Real Church

Larry Crabb

ISBN: 978-0-7852-2920-9

This is a book which was sent to me by Thomas Nelson, the publishers, as part of their book review bloggers network.

This is not the sort of book that I would normally read but decided to go for it anyhow, one good thing about doing these book reviews is that I am getting to read stuff that I wouldnt normally look at.

Anyhow, in this book Larry Crabb outlines what he feels are the errors in the 21st Century western church, essentially he feels that the reasons we meet and the way we ‘do church’ are all wrong! he spends most of the book telling the reader what the church has got wrong and then goes on to explain what we should be doing!

Crabb feels that he and many like him are bored with church and get very little out of it simply because we have got church wrong.

In the process he pulls to pieces recent ‘movements’ of the church, such as the Seeker Sensitive Church & Missional Church in order to illustrate what he considers to be wrong emphases in the church.

OK so you might think, from the way that I worded the above that I disagree with Larry Crabb, well I have to say that I don’t agree with everything he says and did find the book overly negative and some of his assumptions on whats wrong with different approaches and models of church I felt were based on his own interpretation of those moves with little real experience of them.

However I do feel that much of what he says is very valid and he has some very important lessons for all of us, I wouldn’t express them in quite the same way as he does but I share much of his concerns for the direction that 21st century church is taking.

Fundamentally Crabb sets out 3 main reasons why most people actually go to church and sets out why these are wrong motives, these reasons are:

• It will make my life better
• It will show me how to change the world
• It will offer salvation and help for religious living

He outlines these in great detail but in overview his concern is that the church is very good at making converts and teaching converts to conform, outwardly, to a pattern of behaviour or follow a set of rules without them necessarily being an inner transformation of the heart, which is what God really wants.

It is possible, crabb says, to attend church week after week, to be heavily involved in the life of the church, even on the leadership team, attend great conferences etc, encounter lively worship, without having that real encounter with God which brings about a hunger for more of him and a transformation of life and soul.

Crabbs heart-cry is for the church in the western world to have such an encounter with God that lives are transformed in a way that programmes and strategies just don’t reach.

Crabb outlines that he believes that every man, woman and child is an addict, addicted to his/her own pleasure, they love themselves and others, including God, for their own sake, they love in order to get.

Crabb says that we need to love others, love ourselves and love God for God’s sake, we need to get God so much that we don’t want to seek our own pleasures but Gods pleasure, in all that we do.

I think that Crabb seeks, in the writing of this book to see churches transformed into real communities of God, I have to say I think I agree with much of what he says but I don’t think that this book can impact a whole congregation, I think the transformation can only happen one member at a time, as people ‘get’ what this book is seeking to give, in a way that impact their lives.

I suspect that many people will read the first 3 chapters and then put the book down, I was tempted to but as I had to do a book review was forced to read it all the way through, for which I am grateful.

I found Crabbs summary about what a real church should be really helpful.

• A real church doesn’t entertain people on a Sunday morning
• a Real church isn’t satisfied when people come to services on Sunday, tithe their income and get invovled in church activities, and live moral decent lives. a real church pleads with Gods spirit to keep spiritually forming its people until they see Jesus as their supreme treasure.
• a real church never values participation in programmes above relating in community
• a real church knows that doing good in this world has no redemptive power unless the do-good-er knows Jesus resembles Jesus and relates to Jesus in the energy of Jesus in their home and church first and then in the culture around them.

I also like the following quote from the book:

Revival depends on prayer for God’s Spirit to let us see and hear what Jesus saw and heard.

I did however agree with much of his concerns for recent ‘moves’ or trends in the church as I have felt for a long time that such moves are just

The heart of the message is, as I understand it ‘Church doesn’t have to be like this, there is more to church and to your spiritual life than just going through the motions, what you, and I, need most, is a real touch of the spirit that makes you hunger after more of him in your life, that pushes you on to pursue his kingdom and his righteousness, in your lvies and in the community.world in which you, we live.

One issue that Crabb tackles, all too briefly for my liking, is one that has been a concern of mine for some time, and its the tension between the ’social gospel’ of just doing good to/for people and the whole issue of doing good for an ulterior motive, i.e. doing good stuff simply in order to ‘earn the right to preach the gospel, Crabb says basically that as Christians who want to see the answer to the Lords Prayer ‘your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’ it is a part of our ministry to do the right things, be it simply opening the door for a mum with a toddler & buggy or going into areas of extreme need and poverty in order to reach out to those affected, or engaging with the political powers over issues of justice, we do these things as Christians not to earn the right to preach the gospel but in order to be apart of the fulfilment of that part of the Lords prayer, on other words, in doing good we are bringing a little piece of heaven to earth.

Having said all the above, my biggest criticism for Crabb in wwriting this book has to do with the language he uses, he regularly uses ‘the church I like’ or ‘the church I want to be a part of’ etc, I am fed up with the consumeristic nature that is developing in the church, indeed one of the things that Crabb criticises in this book, and the language he uses indicates a consumeristic type mindset, my mine and me, whereas we should focus not on what I, or you, or Larry Crabb, wants from church but on what GOD wants his church to be like. As I said, on the one hand Crabb tackles this consumer mindset then on the other hand he uses the very language that is central to such a mindset, I get what he means but the language gets in the way.

Anyhow, in conclusion, on balance all this is a good read and I would recommend this book for any Christian to read and be challenged by, but would say that you need to catch the heart of what he is saying not just come away depressed because of the negative portrayal of 21st century church.