Book Review: In Real Time

If any of you have lived in Nashville for any amount of time, there may be a good chance that you have at least heard of the young adult ministry called Kairos. It is a twenty-something ministry that is held out at Brentwood Baptist and is lead by their Senior pastor there, Mike Glenn. This ministry seems to have exploded overnight. It is huge and its still growing. Young adults from all over the Nashville flock to Brentwood Baptist on Tuesday (and now Thursday) night to hear "Uncle Mike" exegete the Scripture with immense practicality. This has stirred the interests of church growth theorists everywhere. Thus, Mike Glenn wrote a book on it and this is it.

The difference between this book and most church/ministry growth books that you'll read is that Mike Glenn does not focus on the specifics too much. He makes a huge emphasis on the principles that they use and how to approach the people. He does not discuss the intimate details of the program. His reason for this is that he doesn't think it has anything to do with the little specifics. He feels that if you were to look too much at the specifics that it wouldn't make sense in another context. That is the exact meaning of their ministry: Kairos, which is Greek for "a unique moment in time". He feels that this ministry is just the right thing at the right time to accomplish the right goal.

There were a handful of things that really jumped out at me from this book. He made a lot of valid points about ministering to postmoderns. He talked about how this generation, because of the disintegration of the American family, has problems with any type of relationship. It takes them a long time to build that trust with individuals, especially when it comes to people in authority like pastors. He also made a great point about how pastors expect to be treated like professionals: making appointments with people, scheduling with people and so on. He said the problem with this is that this generation doesn't look at pastors as professionals because of how clergy have been portrayed in popular media. One of the great things about this book is that between chapters he takes you through a "Kairos guided prayer". He shows you the way he leads this congregation through prayer each night and how it effectively leads them into worship.

In short, he makes a lot of great points concerning the ministry of postmodern young adults. It is one of the better books that I have read on the subject. He expounds upon a lot of great truths that I have not thought about. I highly recommend this book, especially to those in the ministry or that are seeking to be in the ministry. There are some things in this book that we all have to address, whether we want to or not.