(Editor's Note: Today's commentary first aired January 19, 2016).
Imagine having dozens of new friends come into your life this year—friends who are, like you, committed Christians. These friends have the capacity to change your life forever, and help you develop your own ministry, using your own vision and your own God-given gifts. Plus, they’re a lot of fun. Wouldn’t you gladly embrace new friends like these?
Well I think, folks, you’d be crazy not to. Because these new friends are the leaders and participants of the Colson Fellows Program, formerly known as the Centurions Program.
As a Colson Fellow in training, you’ll spend nine months reading the best books, participating in teleconferences with the best thinkers, and attending three residencies with the best teachers of Christian Worldview—people like Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family; Joni Eareckson Tada; Sean McDowell of Biola University, Nabeel Quereshi of the Ravi Zacharias Institute, and our own Colson Fellows National Director, Dr. Bill Brown, former president of Bryan College and Cedarville University. And yes, of course John Stonestreet and I will be speaking to you as well!
Chuck Colson founded this program, as he said, “to equip serious Christians to think seriously about all of life’s issues and to become change agents to strengthen the church and in turn the culture for generations to come.”
And Chuck’s vision has become a reality. Each year 100 men and women from all walks of life and from all over the country take part in the Colson Fellows Program. Colson Fellows are now university presidents, politicians, ministry leaders, corporate executives, as well as students and homeschool moms.
One Colson Fellow decided to take worldview lessons to those who really need it: prison inmates. He got permission from a prison chaplain and started up a class.
Another Colson Fellow came up with the idea of providing creative and biblically sound to children. He quit his job and joined a small animation company. He’s now giving the secular shapers of pop culture a run for their money.
Yet another Fellow decided to teach Christian bioethics both to his church and to his theology students.
Gordon College President Michael Lindsay is also a Colson Fellow. He says “I greatly benefited from the opportunity to meet extraordinary people from around the country while also being exposed to great thinkers who integrate Christian reflection into cultural analysis that touches every part of our lives.”
When Chuck founded the Colson Fellows twelve years ago, he could never have imagined how badly it would be needed today given the threats we face: from the imposition of same-sex “marriage” to the erosion of religious freedom, to the exponential coarsening of our politics and culture.
Chuck also might not have imagined how wildly successful the Colson Fellows Program would be. Some 1,000 people have been equipped to take their faith into areas of law, family, the arts, sciences, theology, medicine, government, and more. And they’re making a difference.
If you’re getting excited just hearing about the Colson Fellows Program, then hurry on over to ColsonFellows.org for more information and to find out how to apply. You can choose between attending our national flagship program in the Washington, D.C. area, or one of our regional programs. Applications are due May 1, and the new class begins in August.
I hope you’ll be there. Even though the program is demanding, you’ll learn how God can use you to be a redemptive superhero in your community and culture—and put together a plan of action for Kingdom work.
Again, come to ColsonFellows.org.
BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
Eric Metaxas is a co-host of BreakPoint Radio and a best-selling author whose biographies, children's books, and popular apologetics have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Publication date: February 4, 2016