Real Church: A Cursory Review

Real Church
by Larry Crabb
A Cursory Review

I don’t usually read books like this. I gave up on reading popular Christian books several years back. I only have so much time and money and I have come to consider them a poor investment of both.

Most popular Christian books are written on issues, topics or themes related to Christian living or church life. Even the best of them focus on application of scripture to their respective subjects rather than the exegesis of scripture in its original context. In the instances in which scripture is the basis for what they are saying, they only occasionally make that scripture explicit by citing it. Only rarely, however, do they take the time or space to justify their application with an explicit exegesis of the biblical texts that are guiding their thoughts and arguments.

I only want to read books that help me understand and apply the scriptures. I want to hear the word of God. I don’t have the time, money or patience to read anything else. The Bible makes it very clear: God is establishing his kingdom and the risen, enthroned Jesus is building his church. They are doing it by sending forth their word into the world. The Bible contains the story in which the church is playing a role. Guidance for Christian life and church life starts with good biblical exegesis. Again, I don’t have the time, money or patience to read anything that circumvents sound biblical exegesis.

Exegesis of the Bible requires two distinct steps. The first is understanding the meaning of scripture in its original context. The second involves applying the message to our 21st-century lives. Most sermons and Christian books are not commentaries or anything close to it. In fact they tend to mix and even confuse the two steps. If they even bother with scripture, they typically cite it then immediately draw conclusions applied to our lives.. Perhaps they have done their exegetical homework and just don’t want to bother us with that step. They’ve done the work but are not showing it. Sometimes, however, you wonder whether they even bothered with the exegetical step. They jump straight from scripture to what it means for us. And then sometimes you wonder whether they’re coming from a clear scriptural basis at all.

I recently read Larry Crabb’s popular book Real Church because so many Christian brothers whom I love and respect recommended his work. In this particular book, Brother Crabb is clearly basing his arguments on his understanding of scripture, although he only occasionally makes that scripture explicit. And when I finally get to what he has to say about what a church should be, I get the impression that his thoughts are not only based on scripture, they are shaped, for the most part, by a fairly thorough understanding of scripture.


Brother Crabb is not satisfied with the present paradigm of church practice. He is inclined to “skip church and sleep in” (p. 21). He is not persuaded that he needs

what Western Christians, especially American Evangelicals, think of as church: a Sunday event with music and preaching; official spiritual leadership; a designated place to meet; church-sponsored and supervised small groups for Bible study, prayer, fellowship, support, and recovery; the inevitable committee meetings; informed conversations at planned or unplanned social occasions (135-6)

He argues that this sort of church fails to get at what ails us: addiction to objects other than God, especially to pleasure and to self. “I’m an addict to pleasure. This gets in the way of becoming addicted to God, who makes me thirsty for pleasure He won’t give me until later” (112). Most churches tend to feed our addiction to pleasure.

Much of what we do, including what we do in church and in small groups and in weekend conferences, is aimed in one direction: to get us feeling what we want to feel and doing what we want to do (108).

In fact no church that he is familiar with in one of its present three forms provides what he believes God designed the church to be. He wants a community of truth-hungry Christians who through repentance and brokenness hear the “music of heaven’s truth.” Without going into the three kinds of churches that don’t work for him and why, I’ll skip to the four things he would like to find in a church.

1. Hunger for “living and active truth” that can set addicts free.
Clearly an allusion to Hebrews 4.12, Brother Crabb defines “living and active truth” as taking three forms: (1) resurrection truth, (2) story truth, and (3) signpost truth. For these categories, he is clearly indebted to N.T. Wright (especially Surprised by Hope), whom he explicitly acknowledges in several points in his work. For me, this only reinforces his credibility. If Brother Crabb is not himself reading scripture afresh and doing his own exegesis, he is at least reading those who are. This in itself is rare among those who sermonize and write for the Christian mass market.

Resurrection truth embodies our hope of new creation in the present. Blessed are the broken and the hopeless, for to them will be given the power of the life-giving Spirit. “There’s always hope! Never give up!” The good news is that we can change and we can make a difference.

Story truth is something Brother Crabb discovered about the same time I myself discovered it (2006). He admits that he studied the Bible for 50 years, gleaning “bits and pieces of Bible truth, principles and doctrine – but not the Bible story” (99). He is presently writing a book (to be released next year) which attempts to tell the Bible story, book by book. I am looking forward to it, although I prefer working through the story firsthand under the exegetical guidance of scholars I know who have done “due diligence” in Bible languages, culture and history. From the small amount he shares in the appendix to Real Church, he seems to come close to mixing the two steps of exegesis stated above.

Nevertheless, he correctly identifies the questions that the Bible story seeks to answer (100):

Who is God?
What in the world is he doing (past, present and future)?
Who are we?
What’s gone wrong? What or who is our real enemy?
What has God done (and although not stated, what is he doing)?
What is the Spirit doing now? (Not sure how this differs from 2, 5 and 7)
How can we join in?

We tend to answer these questions and then find scriptures that we think support our understanding without really first understanding the Bible in its parts as one continuous story. The vast majority of Christian writers, preachers and teachers fail to truly teach the Bible as a coherent story. But for Brother Crabb (and me), “Bible study is story time” (101).

In fact, there is a whole new breed of Bible scholars and exegetes who are beginning to read the Bible this way, but one needs to select commentaries and study materials with care, because most still just pay lip service to “story truth.” The Bible as story is not just one alternative way to read the scriptures; it is the only valid way. The Bible is a cohesive story and must be read as one. I’m not sure whether Brother Crabb realizes it or not, but neither “resurrection truth” and “signpost truth” can be understood apart from “story truth.” The former two are derived from the latter. Resurrection only has meaning in the context of the overall Bible story. What enabled the apostles to understand the implications of Jesus’ resurrection? Read Luke 24.44-46. What informed Paul’s understanding of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15? The Old Testament scriptures define the meaning and significance of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. It makes no sense apart from the story.

The story also identifies and gives meaning and significance to the signposts. We will never understand the answers to question 7 above, the purpose of the church, witness, evangelism, worship, etc. until we understand the Bible as a story. Our fragmented approach to reading, teaching and preaching the Bible (although not without spiritual benefit) will not suffice to reliably guide us in these areas. Brother Crabb is spot on here, in my opinion, and church leadership has a long way to go to catch up to leading scholarship.

Signpost truth is not something Brother Crabb explains so that I can understand exactly what he’s talking about. Again he is borrowing N.T. Wright’s term (104), so it might be better to read Surprised by Hope. Brother Crabb thinks of signposts as “categories of understanding,” and these categories somehow facilitate application of scripture to current day problems and issues not specifically addressed in scripture. He advises the church to study the biblical texts themselves and to read “wise interpreters in order to see which way the signpost is pointing” (104). Again, by “wise interpreters” he must be referring to are scholars of the more recent “Bible as one story” perspective, including N.T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, Andrew T. Lincoln, Richard B. Hays, James Dunn, Tom Holland, Richard T. France, etc.

2. Respects the necessary ingredients in the remedy for addiction
The necessary ingredients do not involve helping me feel good, which merely feeds my addiction (112). But there is resurrection truth. I am a new creation and I can become more like Jesus, which is at the center of the cure for my addiction to self. Brother Crabb wants to be a part of a formation-focused church (118).

3. Wants what Jesus wants
The church that Jesus wants – and that which provides the strongest witness – is a community of real people who forgive one another and who live in genuine unity.

4. Mission-energized
“Mission” is the new buzzword for activity previously referred to as “outreach” and evangelism. Some churches identify their reason for existing as “missional.” But so much of our outreach fails to understand the evangelistic task for the church in the context of the Bible story. Brother Crabb is “convinced that a hunger for knowable, clear, biblically revealed truth serves as the foundation beneath a Christian’s eagerness for mission (126). He wants to be “part of a church that talks about the big picture, that tells the story of what God is up to” (129). In the context of the Bible story, every cup of water offered in Jesus’ name becomes is part of the church’s outreach effort. One day, God will set all things to right. The present kingdom of God is the effort of the church to bring to reality in the power of the Spirit the peace and justice of God “on earth as in heaven.”

What Brother Crabb is longing for in a church seems to be shaped by his fresh understanding of the Bible story. I suspect he is aware that the church that he envisions will not somehow develop under the present paradigm which shapes how most people view the church. Bandaids will not cure what ails us. This vision of what the church could be will not be achieved by simply doing worship better or doing small groups better under the current model. It will require a whole new paradigm. The church will have to find this new paradigm in the Bible story – which is where I believe Brother Crabb is beginning to find it. We cannot simply borrow his vision. We must find our own vision from an understanding of scripture. What this new church will look like in form and practice is not set in stone. But resurrection truth assures us that there is hope even for the Evangelical church in America.

I agree with much of what Larry Crabb has to say in this book. But I’m not sure how valuable the book is. If it achieved the result of sending Christians back to the Bible and to “wise interpreters” to find the Real Church within its story, then I would enthusiastically recommend it. But he doesn’t really encourage the reader to do that. I guess he just assumes readers already know that the Bible pretty much supports his views. The thing is, among my friends who have read the book, I haven’t perceived any real interest in returning to the Bible under the tutorship of “wise interpreters” in an effort to understand it anew as one story, let alone any resolve to teach it that way. Perhaps they’re waiting for Brother Crabb’s book to come out next year and perhaps kill three birds with one stone. I look forward to discussing that book with my brothers in Christ.