Bob's Blog

I just finished previewing Kary Oberbrunner's new book, The Fine Line. The book focuses in on the age old question on how can Christians be in the world but not of it? He draws his points from real life and at times personal examples that we can all relate to, and asks questions that are "refitted" for the 21st century believer.

What I appreciate about Kary's insights is how he redefines the question of how today's Christians interact with their world. He sites biblical truths that believers are to posses and shows us how we are to live them out in a postmodern world. We all have read some where that the Church needs to be relevant in today's culture but no one really tells you what that means. This is key to Kary's book. He actually defines what being relevant means (you'll have to read the book to get his definition) without denying who we are as the Church. These are not new thoughts that he is bringing to the Church but an "old Truth" in a voice for a new millennial. I can see someone using this book in a college-age Sunday morning gathering, a high school discipleship group, or a discussion starter for elders.

The book should be hitting the stores about now and I would recommend that you pick up a copy. The chapters read very fast and easy with discussion questions for each chapter. Also, there is an appendix section that gives you a short comparisons between modern and postmodernism. A nice compliment to the questions at the end of the chapters.

Los Altos Grace Brethren Church, in Long Beach, California, will be hosting an Organic Church Training seminar on November 7-9th. Organic churches is a movement within Chrisitanity that strike a cord with a younger group of believers for their emphasis on relational communities. Even some "traditional" (or campus based churches) are implementing the core teachings of organic church ministries. There are many church leaders who believe that the future of the Church will involve different "styles" of how we do "church," including the defining what the Church should look like. The Organic Church movement is seen as one of those many different ways that the Church will evolve as this younger generation continues to age and define who they are as Christians. If you would like more information, you can go to www.cmaresources.org/greenhouse.