I have continued to read Larry Crabb’s Soul Talk. This post is a bit awkward for me because I have made an effort on this blog to focus on articulating what I do believe, rather than on focusing on disagreements. But I have also made an attempt to be honest and as transparent as possible.

Having said that, I still find Crabb’s major purpose in this book to be very profound and exciting. However, over the last several chapters I have been disappointed in the direction he has been moving in. In chapters 5-8, I think the word he has used most often is “battle.” The imagery is fairly violent, talking about entering a war zone, fighting a battle, etc. I think Crabb uses this to highlight how much is at stake in the way we converse with one another. I agree completely with this premise. However, I think of my task as more subversive than one of declaring war. My hope is to shift conversations so that before people know it they are speaking out of the deepest desires of their souls, rather than the superficial things that prevent people, and God, from really getting in.

I may be reading too much into this, but I also sense more dualism than I am comfortable with. It almost feels gnostic to me at times. Again, I sense that for Crabb this is because he is writing out of some very powerful personal experiences he has had that are based in his relationship with God. So, my criticism here may be off base.

One final thing I just have to get off my chest. This is possibly the loudest, ugliest book cover I have ever seen! (I say this mostly as a joke, because I now know first hand that authors have essentially zero say in what the cover of their book looks like. But Thomas Nelson, what were you thinking? If I am blinded by the cover, I can’t see to read the book.) You can judge for yourself by looking at the currently reading list to the right.

There is still much that I am connecting with. For example, Crabb writes, “We’re beginning to realize that the journey is not about getting our act together in prayer retreats or counseling sessions or anyplace else; it’s about dropping our masks and facing the terror of living in a world without solutions to our biggest problems and then seeing that we belong in a different world. Then wholeness sneaks up on us” (64). This quote has the gnostic/dualism I already alluded to, but it also makes a good point – as he says elsewhere, we often put second things first.

Crabb writes, “Lodged deep in his soul is the basic agenda of Adam’s children: I want to do something that will make my life better.

Lodged deep in his soul is the basic agenda of God’s children: I want to experience God through whatever means he provides and keep trusting him whether life gets better of not” (74).

Again, I think Crabb helps point out the tension that we face between wanting to be in control, and wanting to know and love God. This is a major strength, Crabb refuses to allow us to settle for a superficial relationship with God. He wants us to go deeper.

I think Crabb sums up the Fall pretty well on p. 78, “He convinced creatures who were designed to enjoy free love from God and to love God and other in return that there was something better: control.” At least for me, that was a powerful reminder of how often I am wrestling control of my life away from God.

Finally, here is another great summary of what Crabb speaks to that really connects with me, “We desire to speak out of our depths into the depths of another, to speak with life-arousing power to other people” (108). Amen! I have found that to be the most meaningful, alive, intimate, and fulfilling experience I can have with another person. It is hard, but an incredible blessing.

I am hoping that Crabb is going to get a bit more concrete in the second half of the book in giving more practical advice about how to move from what he refers to as SelfTalk into SoulTalk.

“Most people go through their entire life never speaking words to another human being that come out of what is deepest within them, and most people never hear words that reach all the way into that deep place we call the soul” (13). This is the burden that Larry Crabb seeks to address in Soul Talk: The Language God Longs for Us To Speak. He argues that “Every conversation either stimulates or dampens our desire for God” (26). As a result, in Soul Talk he seeks to address the question: “How can conversations between followers of Jesus become a stage on which the supernatural power of God is unmistakably displayed” (29)?

Crabb worries that “We live in a day when the life that God has given to every Jesus follower is counterfeited, contrived, neglected, hidden, unreleased, and generally not believed in” (43). Crabb further laments that “most of us are never known by a safe friend, never explored by a curious friend, and never discovered by a hopeful friend. And that is a tragedy, as harmful to the soul as AIDS is to the body. Hearts are not changed. Or hearts that have been changed by the Spirit at conversion to Christ are not released” (56).

Later, Crabb argues that if Jesus were speaking directly to our culture today he would say that we have “a heart problem. My people want something more than they want me. And it’s ruining them… Learn to speak with power into people’s lives. Arouse their desire for me until their thirst for me consumes them” (60).

If it seems that I am just listing off a string of quotes, I guess in some ways I am. Honestly, I am trying to force myself to slow down as I read this book to work to process some of it more deeply. I think I have experienced the kind of edifying conversation that Crabb yearns for believers to experience. I have felt times where I was burdened to say something to someone when we were talking – but it wasn’t about me. I really felt that the Spirit was prompting me to speak into someone else’s life.

These kinds of experiences are hard to articulate or explain in hindsight. In some ways, rereading what I just wrote, I feel like it sounds too mystical or otherworldly. Really, it is just a feeling of being in the presence of God. Peace and joy are the two words that come to mind.

These experiences are profound and sometimes life changing. If nothing else, when our hearts connect with another believer at a deep level, we are encouraged to focus on God and what God is seeking to do in our lives. And yet, I think Crabb is largely right- I am not sure very many Christians experience this level of “watching over one another in love”. I don’t know why. It may be that some people want to, but genuinely don’t know how. Or it may be that others are afraid that if anyone else really knew them, that they would leave or reject them.

I am afraid I may be putting too much hope in this book, because I am really hoping that it will help me to lead others into this kind of conversation. From my experience, I would say that when you can really open yourself up to a brother or sister in Christ in the presence of the Holy Spirit, those are holy moments where God’s gracious, healing, and restoring presence is especially tangible. I believe what Crabb refers to as “Soul Talk” is a major way that God’s Spirit renews people in the image that they were created in and enables them to grow in holiness.

Does this arouse a passion in you? What questions, issues, or other thoughts do you have? Have you read this book or had experience with deep Christian conversation? I would love to hear your thoughts and dialogue more about this.

I recently picked up a copy of Larry Crabb’s Soul Talk: The Language God Longs for Us To Speak. On the fourth page of the first chapter Crabb unleashes this wake-up call: “Churches, by no means all but too many, have become as dangerous to the health of our soul as porn shops. People leave both superficially titillated and deeply numbed” (16).

Ouch. But is he right? I hope and pray that this description would not fit for my congregation. But I am afraid that far too often we settle for forming people to something that is far short of the kind of relationship that God wants us to have with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as well as with each other. Since seminary, I have found an increasing longing to be a force for renewal within the church and over the last few years I have come to sense that one of the ways the Spirit is working to spark such a revival is through helping people enter into deeper community with one another. Wesley beautifully described what I have in mind as “watching over one another in love.”

In the Introduction to Soul Talk, Crabb writes, “We can learn to talk with each other in ways that arouse our passion for God until it becomes the most powerful desire in our soul. How that can happen, and what needs to happen in you and me as we speak into each other’s lives, is what this book is all about” (9). I sense a real need for learning how to talk to each other about the things that really matter. I am definitely interested to see what Crabb has to say.

Going All the Way: preparing for a marriage that goes the distance is an ambitious book. It is ambitious primarily because it seeks to say something that hasn’t already been said about dating and marriage from a Christian perspective. If any one could succeed in such an audacious task, it would be Craig Groeschel, who is the founding pastor of LifeChurch.tv, which has become a multi-site congregation that sees more than 20, 000 in worship at its combined weekly worship services. Groeschel is an innovator who has done some amazing things that have been noticed by the church at large. He is also one of the authors of LifeChurch.tv’s blog Swerve.

One of the requirements of a pastor who has witnessed and facilitated such dramatic growth is that he or she be an excellent, gifted communicator. In Going All the Way, Groeschel does not disappoint as he gets his point across through anecdotes that often can’t help but make you smile. He also effectively uses self-deprecating humor. Most importantly, he keeps his eyes on the “Christian” content of the book. In other words, he is mostly successful in avoiding the temptation to moralize or make commonsense statements that are not really connected to specific Christian content. He clearly encourages the reader to see their relationship with God to be the one relationship that will complete them, rather than seeking to find it in another person. According to Groeschel, it is only after we first are connected to God, that we can hope to succeed in finding our two, or the person that we hope to spend the rest of our lives with.

This book commends itself because it is very readable. After finishing one chapter, I typically wanted to keep going into the next chapter. I found myself sometimes laughing out lout, sometimes scratching my head, and I even found myself motivated to examining my marriage again to make sure that I am doing all that I can to love Melissa as I am called to love her. In short, the book was an interesting read, it made me think, and it reminded me to practice some things that I already knew.

My main criticism of the book would be that I felt that as the book went on it lost some of its momentum. In the first few chapters Groeschel was witty, sometimes even hillarious. He may have been repeating largely familiar arguments, but the way it was written was fresh and engaging. As the book continued, it felt as if Groseschel may have lost some of his enthusiasm for the project. That is purely speculation, but some of the later chapters lacked the freshness and creativity of the first several. The two main examples of this for me were the chapters “Thinking Differently About Husbands” and “Thinking Differently About Wives.” After the much of the originality and humor I had enjoyed that served to highlight the truth, in these two chapters he seemed to basically just restate the predictable male role of spiritual leader and female role of submission. For example on page 170 Groeschel writes, “Honestly, most teaching on submission makes me cringe.” But then the rest of the chapter essentially reiterates that very teaching on submission. What would make a woman feel any more comfortable with his articulation of a woman’s duty to submit?

One notable exception was a terrific biblical illustration that Groeschel uses. In Chapter 8 “Your Story Starts Again” Groeschel is discussing how to deal with past mistakes and sins. He closes the chapter by looking at “Two men who committed basically the same horrible sin – betraying Jesus” (111). The two men are Judas and Peter. He reminds us that Judas saw no hope and equated what he had done with who he was, and so he took his own life. Peter, on the other hand, after denying Jesus three times, met Jesus face to face and received forgiveness and further spiritual empowerment. Two men who denied Jesus, with two very different results.

Ultimately, since the main purpose of the book is to help people to prepare “for a marriage that goes the distance” it should be judged above all else on whether it succeeds in this task. My hope and prayer is that it will.