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Welcome to breakpoint, a daily look at an ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Coulson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. In many churches, Christianity is reduced not necessarily to something false or heretical, but to something just smaller than what it really is. Often, even our understanding of the church's mission to exalt Christ, to edify believers, to evangelize the lost are all understood in ways that confine Christianity. Worship only happens on Sunday mornings. Discipleship is the acquisition of biblical knowledge or the process of becoming more moral. Evangelism is about securing decisions for Christ. Now, of course, they're all good things, but just not the whole story. That's why Christianity is often highly visible inside the church and largely absent from where people spend most of their lives. When faith is separated from work, when worship is disconnected from vocation, when discipleship becomes unrelated to the culture and salvation irrelevant to the wider world, Christianity has been privatized. Now, this would have puzzled the earliest Christians. The New Testament authors are constantly presenting Christ not only as the Savior of souls, but as the Lord of heaven and earth. The Apostle Paul declared that all things were created through him and for him, and in him all things hold together. In other words, Christ's reign extends over every single square inch of reality. And if that's true, then worship could never be confined to just a sanctuary. Worship would be how we conduct all of our business, raise our children, care for our neighbors, create art, pursue justice, engage politics, steward any and every part of creation. To exalt Christ is to live under his lordship wherever he has put us. To disciple believers is about more than just teaching them Bible facts. It's about transformation. Paul urged believers not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. That kind of formation reshapes not only what we think about the Bible, but how we understand reality itself. It teaches us to see the world through the lens of God's kingdom and to see God's kingdom as the reality about the world we live in. That kind of formation is desperately needed, especially today. After all, we're all being discipled by something. Something's forming our loves, shaping our habits, shaping our assumptions. And if these things are not being shaped by the Holy Spirit through Holy Scripture, then it's being shaped by our surrounding culture. A Christian who understands justification, but then thinks about sexuality or identity, work, technology, politics, or human flourishing in essentially secular terms has not been fully discipled because he's not been fully formed. The church's task is to cultivate believers whose entire lives bear witness to that reality. Christ is Lord of all. In the same way, evangelism is not about a single transaction. Jesus never commanded his followers to make converts. He commanded them to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything he'd commanded. That's the Great Commission. It's not really about getting people to heaven. It's about bringing every area of life under the gracious reign of Jesus Christ. That's how the early church transformed the ancient world. Christians rescued abandoned infants, cared for plague victims, elevated the dignity of women, challenged unjust practices, and created communities marked by love. It was a message both proclaimed with words and embodied in a way of life. In other words, their faith was very personal, but it was not private. None of this means that the church's mission is to seize political power or to somehow impose Christianity on the rest. Far from it. As Chuck Colson often reminded us, Christians are always called to propose, not impose. The goal is never dominance. It's faithfulness. Our task is not to control, it's to witness. We do not pursue cultural power. We seek to be obedient to Christ. And yet faithful Christians will inevitably influence culture. When believers are deeply formed by Scripture, when Christ is exalted in every sphere of life, when the gospel is proclaimed and embodied, everything, including communities, families, institutions, and cultures change not because cultural transformation is the mission, but because it's often the fruit of the mission. What the church needs is not some new strategy for engagement. What it needs is a recovered vision of the kingdom of God, a big enough worldview. And that's the conviction at the heart of the Colson Fellows Program. Not only do Colson Fellows intentionally learn more about the faith and the world around them, they learn to see all of life through the lens of Christ's kingdom and then to live faithfully within it. Because the church needs more than informed believers. It needs formed believers, men and women prepared to follow Christ faithfully wherever he's called and placed them. Applications are being accepted now for the Colson Fellows Program. Learn more and apply@colsonfellows.org that's colsonfellows.org for the Colson Center. I'm John Stonestreet with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co authored with Michael Craven. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review wherever you download podcasts and learn more about the Colson fellows program@colsonfellows.org
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Christian educators this is Billy Hutchinson with Colson Educators. As a former teacher myself, I know you're busy and I know you want to teach like a Christian, not just be a Christian who teaches well. That's why we created the Colson Educators app. You can get practical worldview training wherever you are, complete courses on your schedule, earn CEUs and connect with a community of like minded educators. Download the Colson Educators app on the Apple App Store or Google Play.