The faithfulness that individual Christians demonstrate in their everyday lives makes a compelling case that the Christian worldview is both true and good. The Colson Center’s mission is to help Christians live faithfully to what is true and good, aligning both their personal convictions and public lives with revealed truth. It is a gift and grace of God to hear from Christians who’ve been served and helped by a Breakpoint commentary or another Colson Center ministry.
Because every square inch of reality was created by God and exists under the rule and reign of Jesus Christ, every Christian is “on the front lines.” For example, Scott is the head of a Christian school in Cedar Park, Texas. The training he received in the Colson Fellows program has dramatically impacted his work as an educator.
I, like any head of a Christian school anywhere in America, face many of the same challenges. You know, we’re living in a culture that’s no longer just promoting ideas and agendas that are opposite of our Christian worldview. Unfortunately, they’re now antagonistic.
I think it’s a real challenge right now to be a Christian institution and to hold to our principles and continue to stay true to what we’re trying to achieve: our mission and purpose as educators.
Non-profit leaders are often resource constrained. We don’t have the time to go through professional development or to really focus on professional development. And the way the program was laid out seemed like a great opportunity for me to go deep but at the same time be able to handle it and manage it with my other competing requirements.
I’m so impressed by the curriculum that Colson is using that I would immediately recommend this curriculum to any educator.
The content that we’re getting through Colson are solid, well thought-out intellectual responses that are biblically aligned, and when we can present those to our families in a way that’s digestible, that helps them deal with challenges they’re facing or that their children are facing, I think they’re incredibly thankful for that. It’s really a privilege to provide that service to them.
God has called Scott to this work at a time that may be one of the greatest opportunities in recent memory for Christian education.
Another follower of Christ on the front lines is Mitch, a pastor in Austin, Texas.
Some of the challenges that came out of my pastoral ministry were born in the same challenges I had as a believer personally. How do I answer the cultural mandates of the day that are rooted not in biblical faith but in secularism and just a desire for autonomy in the individual? And I saw the outcomes in individual lives and in family lives, as the dis-ease of what’s going on in culture affected the faith of the common believer and shipwrecked many of them.
I’m not sure if you’ve heard this expression before, but we pastors know it very well: A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the congregation.
My three-year plan and my ministry plan as a Colson Fellow included “Hey, I’m gonna round up as many pastors as I can. I’m gonna get out my ministry lasso and bring these guys into a pastor’s alignment with the Colson Fellows program.” It was transformational for these guys. You could just see them…. There’s this release of tension as they realize there are other sets of tools and perspectives other than what I’ve just been doing again and again, over and over again, wash, rinse, repeat, of the same types of messaging with the same types of propositions.
So as a church leader, my desire for the average person in the body, the person who calls themself a Christian and is distressed by events and culture, is that they begin a study of God’s Word and the reality that God has told a grand story in every movement of the biblical text that allows for solid, immovable, winsome faith, knowing they have nothing to lose, nothing to risk, and everything to gain by offering beautiful Gospel ideas in place of toxic ideas.
Nothing is more encouraging than to hear from followers of Christ who’ve been resourced, encouraged, and equipped by Breakpoint, the Colson Fellows program, or the Upstream and Strong Women podcasts. If any of these resources have been helpful to you, please email us @info.colsoncenter.org.
And please consider supporting the Colson Center with a year-end tax-deductible gift. You can give at ColsonCenter.org/December.
Today’s Breakpoint was coauthored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to colsoncenter.org.
Publication date: December 22, 2022
Photo courtesy: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/freedom007
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.