Equipping the Next Generation to Think Clearly

Lauren Grenier

English teacher from Texas

Colson Fellow (2025)

Lauren Grenier is a middle-school English teacher and a Colson Fellow from the Class of 2025. Before participating in the program, Lauren noticed a lack of engagement from many of her students when she integrated Scripture into her classroom: “Their eyes would just glaze over. As soon as I brought up Jesus, Scripture, or any sort of biblical integration, they were resistant.” Not only did the Colson Fellows Program strengthen Lauren in the Christian worldview, but it also gave her practical resources to help challenge and form her students’ worldview.

The Cultural Flashpoints portion of the Program was huge, because I’m seeing these flashpoints play out in front of me. It’s been very helpful to have more resources in my bag to respond to things like progressive Christianity, deconstruction, and moralistic therapeutic deism. I appreciated that the program addressed topics the Church is far behind on, like IVF and children’s rights. I’d share Breakpoint articles with my students and say, “Talk to me about what you think.” One day I shared a Breakpoint about an MIT study on ‘bodyoids.’” The students told me, “This is like The Giver!” I said, “Talk to me about IVF. There are all these embryos frozen in clinics and going across the border with no accountability.” My students’ jaws were on the floor. Having these deep, substantive conversations was incredible. You could almost see the scales falling from their eyes. Their initial reaction was typically fear, but then curiosity. These really profound questions were coming from kids with no filter, which was amazing.”

The program also transformed Lauren beyond her teaching career. For her personal mission plan, the Lord led her and her husband to work toward starting a retreat center for Christian ministry workers:

Too many Christian laypeople never get rest. As a culture, we’ve thrown out the Sabbath. Volunteers are being stretched thin, and burnout rates are skyrocketing. The Lord dropped this vision on us, and he orchestrated everything perfectly. The plan is to build a retreat center with housing for Christian ministry workers of any kind. They’ll have space to ask God, “What do You want me to do? How do You want me to participate with You in restoring this world? ”

As Lauren and her husband live out their personal mission plan, they are fulfilling the oath that Colson Fellows recite upon their commissioning: “In my sphere of influence where there is good, I will celebrate it. Where there is evil, I will do my best, with God’s help, to eradicate it. Where there is something missing, I will labor to the best of my ability to generate it. And where there is something broken, I will recalibrate it.” Edited for clarity. You can read all of Lauren’s story here.

${prev-page}

${next-page}