Colson: Christianity Does Not Stop with Salvation
Meanwhile, Bill Peel, who participated in the first Centurions class in 2004, has designed a learning course for medical professionals.
"When participants graduate, we've given them more than a head full of knowledge, but an idea of where God may want them to use it – an idea of what 'God prepared beforehand for us to do,'" he explained.
Describing the value of learning and teaching biblical worldview, Peel said, "The Centurion course gives participants a framework to not only evaluate their own thinking and beliefs, but also a model of how to impart it to others. Our culture establishes cultural norms and beliefs early, so the sooner people begin to recognize unbiblical thinking, the better."
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After years of attracting more applicants than it could take, the Centurions Program has begun to lose steam. Last year, only 90 people applied for the course as opposed to the 200 applicants in previous years.
But Colson believes it's "imperative that we give deeper discipleship to Christians" especially in a relativistic, postmodern world where young people face enormous pressures.
"Earlier, the cultural values would reinforce the Christian teaching of young people. Today, the cultural values mock it," Colson noted. "So there are much more pressures on a young person. Someone 18 or 19 leaving home and going to school is really subjected now to a barrage of hostile pressures, including the idea that there is no truth."
Colson wants to equip believers to be able to not only understand their own faith but also to be able to defend it publicly and live practicing it.
The ministry leader acknowledged, however, that young evangelicals are trying to establish a separate identity from older evangelicals.
"They don't want to be settled with my generation's commitments because they want to express theirs in different ways," he said.
Young people, nevertheless, are responding.
"They think my generation has been unloving and hypocritical and judgmental – probably some truth to it. But it doesn't mean that what we believe is any different than what they should believe," he remarked.
"They may want to apply better what we believe but there should be agreement on what we believe."
Colson said what he's found is that when he explains what he believes and why he believes it, the young people respond.
"And they'll respond to me because I've worked in the prisons," he added.
"They probably won't respond to a theologian, but they will in due course because they will recognize that without the foundations for your belief, your belief isn't going to survive," Colson concluded.
The application deadline for next year's Centurion's Program is Nov. 30. The next program is set to run from January 2011 to January 2012.
On the Web:
Website for the Centurions Program at www.breakpoint.org/resources/centurions
