Colson Fellows Blog

What Is the Church Affiliate Program?

Written by Colson Fellows | Nov 4, 2024 9:24:47 PM

Thinking About Joining the Church Affiliate Program?

The Church Affiliate program brings the worldview training of the Colson Fellows Program directly to local churches, led by their pastors and church leaders. The vision of this program is to equip entire congregations with a Christian worldview so they can live out their faith in every area of life. 

As a pastor or church leader, you want your congregants to understand that the Christian faith is ultimately not private. The Bible offers the only true interpretation of life and reality, informing our work, finances, family life, and how we engage with the world and everything in it from a deliberately Christian perspective. You want them to see that their entire life is to be lived under the reign of Christ. You don’t want them to be dragged along by what our culture claims is good, right, and true, but to be rooted in what God says is true, good, and beautiful! This is especially important today, as Christians find themselves confronted with an ever-increasing array of serious social, ideological, and cultural challenges. You don’t have to look far to see that the Church is being confronted by issues that were unimaginable a few years ago. Perhaps you’ve observed your congregants respond to cultural pressures in one of the following ways: 

  • Withdrawing from challenging conversations and difficult relationships because they don’t know what to say. 
  • Reacting with anger and waging a cultural war rather than walking the narrow road of truth and love.  
  • Conforming to culture, often in the name of “love.” 
  • Hoping in human solutions, like politics, to fix what’s broken. 

These responses to culture ultimately diminish the Church’s public witness.  

If your congregants only see the privatized, “Jesus-and-me” dimension of their faith, they will lack the courage they need to live faithfully in the time and place to which God has called them. They are hungry, maybe even desperate, for guidance. The Church Affiliate program is designed to help you equip your congregation with a faithful biblical response to cultural pressure points. 

The Colson Fellows program has a twenty-year track record for providing world-class worldview education. The program guides participants through a carefully curated journey over four modules: 

  • Understanding and Identifying Worldviews 
  • Understanding Culture and the Church’s responsibilities  
  • Cultural Flashpoints (i.e. hot-button issues like sexuality, race, justice, life, politics, etc.) 
  • Calling & Personal Mission Plan

Typically, Colson Fellows, serving as lay leaders in their local church, are the driving force behind the establishment of a Church Affiliate—but not always. Increasingly, pastors and church leaders are calling for assistance in equipping their congregations with a deeper understanding of the Christian worldview and the times in which we live. 

The Church Affiliate program is a unique opportunity for your church to partner with the Colson Fellows program so you can provide best-in-class worldview formation to your members in this challenging cultural moment. As such, we will invest in your church through free seats in the Colson Fellows program, reduced tuition, and staff support, with the expectation that you are committed to leading the program within your church throughout the relationship. 

Ultimately, the witness of the Church in a dark world requires a comprehensive Christian worldview that believes God reigns, that He is actively making all things new, and that the Church has an instrumental role to play in this work. Take the first step in equipping your congregation with a Christian worldview by exploring the Church Affiliate program.   

For more information about the Church Affiliate program, go to colsonfellows.org/churches