CHARLES CARMAN GRADUATES FROM CHICK-FIL-A LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

05.19.2010

Charles Carman of Waxhaw, N.C., was among 25 students to be commissioned on May 7 by IMPACT 360, a biblical worldview studies program in Pine Mountain, Ga. IMPACT 360 is a residential program for high school graduates that is a ministry of Lifeshape Foundation and affiliated with Chick-fil-A. Students are equipped to be servant leaders on their college campuses and change agents among their generation.

Dr. Gene Fant, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., gave a challenge to the students at the commissioning service. His remarks built on an intense but gratifying program year, in which students spent nine months studying biblical and opposing worldviews in the classroom and putting those studies into practice within the IMPACT 360 community and around the world. Students from the Class of 2010 come from 10 states and different walks of life. Over the course of the program, they have learned not just how to live well in close community with their peers, but to build deep and lasting friendships that will sustain them throughout life.

Those relationships were developed during many hours of service in the Pine Mountain community, the Atlanta area, and in Brazil, where students spent one month working with missionaries and local churches to put hands and feet to their classroom experience. When the IMPACT 360 students arrive on their college campuses throughout the U.S., they will be prepared to build authentic Christian community, defend their faith, and lead their peers and communities through selfless service.

“The end of a program year is always bittersweet,” said IMPACT 360 Director John Basie. “Students are leaving some of their closest friends and a safe community that has become ‘home’ to them. We are confident, however, that wherever God leads the Class of 2010, they will thrive and make a palpable difference for the Kingdom of Christ. They represent the best of IMPACT 360: young adults who care deeply, see Truth clearly, and speak of it boldly.”

IMPACT 360 was founded in 2006 by John and Trudy Cathy White, who wanted to break the cycle of spiritual poverty among young adults who enter college and abandon their faith when faced with opposition and challenges to their beliefs. At IMPACT 360, students are challenged by some of the most well-known Christian scholars in the country to know what they believe and why and to understand God’s calling in their lives. Since 2006, IMPACT 360 has produced more than 75 graduates who are motivated to not only affect their campuses with biblical truth, but to use their godly example to impact the rest of the world.