Rating: 
Summary: A Dissapointing Read - The mystic is too mystic
Review: I realize that being the first person to criticize Larry Crabb I could be labeled unspiritual and certainly not valuing Christian Community. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am involved with a close knit group of believers in a thriving Christian community. I've studied the word for a few years now so I was familiar with some of Crabb's concepts especially community and its power to promote spiritual growth. Crabb's concept of "upper and lower" rooms have been more commonly referred to as eternal and temporal or God and Flesh.
My biggest complaint is that I felt Crabb made these concepts a lot more difficult and out of reach on the ideal level than they needed to be. If I were a new believer reading this book I would be completely paranoid and develop spiritual paralysis. Crabb asserts that anytime a thought enters our mind about "am I hurt?" or "do I need to self protect?" that we are operating out of the lower room. In actuality those thoughts are merely a product of our fallen state and the only time we fall into sin would be if we focus and dwell on these things instead of what God is calling on us to do.
Crabb also asserts that there are no psychological problems only spiritual. I absolutely disagree with this from a clinical standpoint although some people certainly have spiritual issues mixed in.
Crabb also has no category for obeying the word if your heart is not behind it. This is something I can't understand because one way we trust God is to follow Him when sometimes we don't understand why. Crabb also complained that questions such as "What does the Bible say I should do?" and "How can I love my husband well?" are managerial (legalistic). I completely disagree. I think these are great questions a growing Christian could be asking.
For the sake of brevity I'll save my other complaints and just say that I do think Crabb had good intent and wanted to persuade against legalism and encourage us to focus on the eternal rather than temporal. However, I think he got so caught up in his "mysticism" as he calls it that his writing was obscure and not culturally relevant.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes new ideas are controversial.
Review: I was excited to read Larry Crabb's concept of creating safe places for people to grow and develop into the creations God made them to be. Although I didn't agree with everything Crabb had to say, I think he has some very scriptural and Biblical principles at work here. This book is a call to Christian counselors and our Christian churches to become places where people grow...not where they can go and interact with their masks on. I found this book to be a breath of fresh air in a world where our churches have become a breeding ground as elitist clubs. As a Christian counselor in training, I found some things that will help me with my relationships now and for when I'm working with clients. Thank you Larry Crabb for having the courage to be a voice in the desert.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't Fulfil My High Expectations
Review: In "The Safest Place on Earth" Larry Crabb attempts to promote and foster the formulation of spiritual community. He sees the vehicle through which our emotional problems may be solved as spiritual community rather than psychological therapy. The journey to spiritual community is a journey toward God that requires brokenness. That brokenness enables us to experience and share God's love. Crabb discusses the Biblical concept of "the new man" and "the old man" by using the analogy of the "lower room" and the "upper room." Crabb sees life in the "upper room" as being discovered through spiritual community, which is a mystical process. As such, this spiritual community is a miracle that is only experienced as we wait on God. Once you've know it, you will settle for nothing less. As a firm believer in the need for spiritual community, I opened this book with high expectations; however those expectations remain unmet. Crabb shared some valuable concepts. I particularly liked the idea of employing "spiritual directs" in our spiritual formation. Yet for me, the book failed to offer any new and innovative insights into spiritual community or provide real answers for achieving it. In fact it seemed laced with a degree of pessimism and gloom that could leave some discouraged regarding the prospect of ever realizing genuine community. I know Dr. Crabb is eminently respected and has helped many in their life's journey, but I found the book less than satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't Fulfil My High Expectations
Review: In "The Safest Place on Earth" Larry Crabb attempts to promote and foster the formulation of spiritual community. He sees the vehicle through which our emotional problems may be solved as spiritual community rather than psychological therapy. The journey to spiritual community is a journey toward God that requires brokenness. That brokenness enables us to experience and share God's love. Crabb discusses the Biblical concept of "the new man" and "the old man" by using the analogy of the "lower room" and the "upper room." Crabb sees life in the "upper room" as being discovered through spiritual community, which is a mystical process. As such, this spiritual community is a miracle that is only experienced as we wait on God. Once you've know it, you will settle for nothing less. As a firm believer in the need for spiritual community, I opened this book with high expectations; however those expectations remain unmet. Crabb shared some valuable concepts. I particularly liked the idea of employing "spiritual directs" in our spiritual formation. Yet for me, the book failed to offer any new and innovative insights into spiritual community or provide real answers for achieving it. In fact it seemed laced with a degree of pessimism and gloom that could leave some discouraged regarding the prospect of ever realizing genuine community. I know Dr. Crabb is eminently respected and has helped many in their life's journey, but I found the book less than satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: This book embodies my prayer for the church.
Review: Larry Crabb's vulnerbility is refreshing. He shares his pilgrimage, not his arrival, his thoughts, not his dogmatic conclusions. Life is a process, confusing, disappointing, but hopeful as we learn to live in the Upper Room and envision that experience for others. Charts are a helpful addition to the fresh approaches to old struggles.
Rating:
Summary: I want what this book talks about.
Review: My favorite book is Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. This book ties with that one for first place. I feel like there is so much that speaks to me in this book that I need to read it again. My spirit was captivated by the concept of living in the upper room. I can relate to the constant dwelling in the lower room, but there is a Hope in me that keeps desiring more of Him, keeps wanting to dwell longer in the upper room. I want to experience community life. Where we all have the same desire...to point each other to Christ, to jump up and down for joy when we see Christ revealed. I'm going to pray that my family and I may experience true community living.
Rating: 
Summary: Very refreshing!
Review: The author writes well and honestly and I would recommend this book. He doesn't gloss over the problems existing in the church but acknowledges they are there in a candid and refreshing way. However, I differ on this one important point, he says and I paraphrase,"Do we ever arrive at a place when we can say we are spiritually mature, and is it important?". It is an honest and good question, however, Paul the apostle was constantly admonishing disciples to move on to spiritual maturity so as not to remain babes in Christ. The writer of Proverbs understood the necessity for gaining spiritual maturity which he called 'wisdom'; "therefore, in all your getting, get wisdom".
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: This book was really helpful to me. I have recently been through a difficult church situation, and it helped me to see that my experience is not the way it's supposed to work. The book encouraged me not to give up on relationship with other Christians. It's not going to be easy, but it's worth the effort. The book gave me something to shoot for in my life and relationships.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: This book was really helpful to me. I have recently been through a difficult church situation, and it helped me to see that my experience is not the way it's supposed to work. The book encouraged me not to give up on relationship with other Christians. It's not going to be easy, but it's worth the effort. The book gave me something to shoot for in my life and relationships.
Rating:
Summary: Developing healing (safe) communities
Review: With Dr. Crabb's books, Connecting and Safest Place, you begin a new journey with him. He lets you know that he no longer regards himself as the expert, but rather a learner. One idea that we grasped in "Safest Place" has made a major impact on our lives and the lives of others with whom we are in relationship. That idea is this: sometimes we can get so down on ourselves because we still struggle with the old nature. We feel like we haven't grown or we should be "beyond" some things. He simply reminds us that we do have an old nature. But if we will learn to see the new nature in each of us and encourage that part, we can actually help each other live in our new nature more than in our old nature. It is time that the church learn to be a healing community, a real place where we truely build one another up in the Lord. This book will help us get there.
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