Dr. Bob Osburn, Executive Director Bob Osburn has a PhD in international education from the University of Minnesota (2005), where he also was an adjunct lecturer for seven years in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development. In 1978 he earned his ThM in Christian education at Dallas Theological Seminary, after earning a BA from the University of Michigan (1973). He has spent 32 years serving in international student and academic ministry at the University of Minnesota, and successfully launched the 1998 World View for World Healing Conference that challenged international students to engage the deepest needs of their societies on the basis of a Christian worldview. He has been married to Susan for 42 years, and is the father of four sons
We all carry worldviews in our minds. These worldviews are big stories about reality that cause us to ask questions like: What is ultimate? What does it mean to be human? How should we live? What is the fundamental human problem? What is the solution to that problem?
There are about 12 main stories, and most of us carry one main story, or a combination of several. But, how can we know that the story we carry around in our mind is true? The 12 stories are so different from each other that all cannot be true. We will learn some principles for determining the True Story as opposed to the many false alternatives.
That leads to one final question: Why does it matter that we come to believe the one True Story? Because the false stories offer false diagnoses of the human condition, for which we then give false and deadly prescriptions. By contrast, learning the True Story ensures that we learn the true diagnosis of the human problem, and thus learn the true prescription that really works to solve our deepest problem.
