Connecting

I believe close relationships can help people heal. I also believe a church can be a place where people are deeply hurt. Both convictions shaped my response to Larry Crabb’s Connecting.

Crabb argues for a kind of Christian community in which people relate deeply and bring healing into one another’s lives. I wanted to understand that vision. But the more I read, the more I questioned his language, his claims, and the boundaries of what he was proposing.

This was not a book I came away recommending. There are ideas here I value, but I do not think they justify the weight Crabb places on “connecting.”

Who is doing the healing?

My first objection is about the source of healing. I believe Jesus heals the soul, our inner, spiritual life. People can be instruments of his care. A community can love, encourage, strengthen, and point someone toward him. I do not think community itself should be given the place that belongs to Christ.

That may sound like a small distinction, but it matters to how we approach another person. Am I trying to use God to make my method effective, or allowing God to use me?

I also think Crabb overstates the church’s claim to be the primary place for healing. A church ought to offer care, but churches can also cause harm. I cannot simply assume that belonging to a Christian community makes someone safe within it.

Nor do I believe a method of relating can replace professional counseling. Sincere friendship is valuable; it does not make every friend a counselor or every church equipped to address every need.

I kept waiting for a clearer meaning

One of my frustrations was how difficult I found it to understand what Crabb meant by connecting. His descriptions were often ambitious and evocative, but I kept asking what they would look like in an actual conversation.

He writes about the life of Christ passing from one person to another and awakening life in them. I wanted more clarity about the part people play and the part belonging to the Holy Spirit, whom Christians understand as God actively present with them.

I objected particularly to language that seemed to make connecting the centre of the gospel. The gospel is the Christian message of good news about Jesus. For me, Jesus himself must remain at its centre. Relationships matter because of who he is and what he does.

I also questioned some of the book’s uses of Scripture and portrayals of Jesus. I wanted the claims about human relationships to be more carefully grounded, rather than carried by language that sounded powerful without becoming clear.

A vision for another person can matter

I do see value in recognizing what a person could become and speaking encouragement into their life. A vision in this sense is an understanding of their possibilities or calling, rather than necessarily a picture someone sees.

I had experienced something like that myself. During prayer with close friends, one said he believed God had given me the title “pastor.” It mattered because I was already wrestling with what I understood as a call toward pastoral work. I received his words as encouragement from God.

But that experience does not persuade me that having a particular vision for someone is a requirement for every genuine relationship. Nor am I comfortable with explanations that risk treating Jesus as merely a promising person whose potential God noticed. Christian belief in Jesus’ divinity needs greater care than that. The Trinity describes one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Jesus is fully divine.

Delight needs a context

Crabb’s emphasis on delighting in another person brought out a very different reaction in me depending on the relationship.

Within a family or close friendship, knowing someone delights in me can help me feel safe enough to be honest. It can make a relationship a place I want to return to.

In counseling, I want warmth, care, and trustworthy boundaries. If I walked into a session and my counselor jumped up and down with delight at seeing me, I would probably start looking for the exit. That is a hypothetical picture, but it captures my discomfort.

The same expression of closeness can feel welcome in one setting and unsettling in another. I do not think we can carry the expectations of intimate friendship into every caring relationship.

Closeness is not measured by disclosure

I also resisted the suggestion that ordinary Christian practices are merely superficial responses to spiritual wounds. Reading Scripture, praying, and continuing to participate in church matter. Those things can be offered thoughtlessly, but they are not automatically empty.

Some of the strongest friendships I can imagine involve people who say little yet would give their lives for one another. A person should not have to disclose everything, embrace everyone, or continually examine another person’s inner life to prove that a relationship is real.

Crabb’s language about relaxing privacy and drawing out what is good in one another left me concerned that boundaries could be treated as obstacles. Sometimes a boundary protects the very trust a relationship needs.

A model I cannot see working at this scale

The level of connection Crabb describes seems more suited to a marriage, a small circle of close friends, family, or a few people learning to follow Jesus together. It does not seem practical as the expectation for every counseling, mentoring, or leadership relationship.

The people closest to us can also hurt us most deeply. That is one reason I would not casually multiply those relationships or assume a congregation could sustain them without serious strain. I see a risk of both hurt and burnout.

Jesus had a close circle of twelve followers. I find that limited circle more helpful as I think about the depth and number of relationships I can sustain. Personally, I do not want more than about six people with whom I am connecting at that level at one time.

I appreciate the desire for churches to become places of genuine care. But I remain unconvinced by this book’s account of how that happens. I want relationships centred on Jesus, dependent on the Holy Spirit, honest about their limits, and clear about the difference between friendship and professional care.

Book discussed

Larry Crabb, Connecting. Scripture references informing my response: Galatians 2:20; 1 John 4:9; Matthew 7:1–6.