Tag Archives: Church Renewal

Can a Real Church be found?

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In a challenging and healthy discussion among friends this morning the topic of Larry Crabb’s most recent book came up. Real Church: Does it exist? Can I find it? is the title to Dr. Crabb’s most recent book. I find more and more people in my world feeling like there has to be more to church than what we typically experience. From what I heard this morning, it sounds like Dr. Larry Crabb has hit some nails on the head. Apparently this is a “must-read” for anyone suffering from disappointment and disillusionment with the state of the evangelical church in North America. I myself am planning and looking forward to reading the book next weekend as I am away on a personal retreat.

According to Larry, a Real Church:

  • Hungers for the Truth that sets addicts free
  • Respects the necessary ingredients in the remedy for addiction
  • Finds contentment in wanting what Jesus wants
  • Is mission energized

I found many of the ideas shared this morning resonating with my own experience, and the reading I’ve been doing in Dr. Terry Wardle’s books. Terry cites Dr. Crabb quite often in his books, so this observed connection was no surprise.

Should be interesting…

To the church in…

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Every once in awhile I like to go to the back of the Bible and read the letters to the 7 churches found in the first few chapters of John’s Revelation. I like to insert my own town name in the place of the name of the original church names and see how it hits me. It is also interesting to me that the names of the churches were simply: “the church in cityname.”

Anyway, this letter in Chapter 3 seemed to jump out at me most recently:

“To the angel of the church in ______ write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. 4 Yet you have a few people in _______ who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Radical Church Renewal

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Going To The Root: 9 proposals for radical church renewal - by Christian Smith

Going To The Root: 9 Proposals for Radical Church Renewal - by Christian Smith

Going to the Root – 9 Proposals for Radical Church Renewal
by Christian Smith
Herald Press © 1992

In the Introduction on page 14 we read:

The problem with many approaches to church renewal is not that they come up with the wrong answer–but that they don’t ask the right questions. Most begin by asking, “What strategy or program will work best to revitalize this church?” Wrong question. We need to dig deeper.

The right question is often not how to revitalize the churches we have. The right questions is “Do we even have the correct vision for what our church ought to be in the first place?” In other words, the first and most important issue, when it comes to thinking about church renewal, ought not to be pragmatic (“How can we do it?”) but normative (“What really ought we to do?).

When I read that, I said “Wow!” out loud. Christian Smith has hit the nail on the head in my opinion.

As I have been reading through the book of Acts again in recent weeks, I have found myself imagining what a church (ecclesia) like Acts 2 would look like today. What made them act so differently than the culture around them? What gave them the boldness and the joy they experienced? Isn’t that what the church should look like today?

I am coming to the conclusion that to rediscover and experience this kind of Acts 2 phenomenon, will involve radical changes, both in our thinking and in our structures. “You can take some people out of the old stale church, but you can’t take the old stale church out of some people.” We must change how we think about the church as much as how we practice it. I believe we must also alter or eliminate many institutional church practices, traditions, roles, rules and programs.

My spirit wants to be a part of that growing grass-roots worldwide movement that has a dynamic vision of what the church could be. It’s a vision that weaves together community, service, participation, spiritual transformation, functioning through giftedness, celebration, mutual accountability and social transformation into a fresh experience of church (ecclesia).