Issue: Spring 2017 | Posted: June 1, 2017
Brenda Briley
Distinguished Achievement in Education
For alumna Brenda Briley, teaching for 26 years in public education was not just a job but a passion, and she never imagined God might call her to a different mission: Trinity Christian Academy in Jackson, Tennessee.
“I’m learning now just because God has you in a place you love doesn’t mean you’ll always be there,” Briley says. “Before going to Trinity, God slowly started changing me, changing my heart.”
Briley taught at Nova Elementary in Jackson for four years and Pope Elementary, also in Jackson, for 22 years. Now 2017 marks the third year since her transition to teaching at Trinity.
“Everything we do at Trinity is biblically integrated,” Briley says. “It’s more about discipleship. We have the opportunity to really build bonds with students and walk them through life.”
Briley knew she would become an educator by her sophomore year of college. Drawn to Union University’s academic excellence and focus on a Christian worldview, she began attending.
“My first class after graduating was the hardest I’ve ever had,” Briley says. “But Union’s different. It’s so much bigger than what you can put down. God called me here because he knew what my first year of teaching would be like. He gave me what I needed.”
With a mission-minded plan, Briley believed she would stay in public education “for the long haul.”
“I’m one of those people you have to push out of the nest,” Briley says. “I used to say I’d never teach middle schoolers, but God opened the door and said, ‘Yes, you will,’ and suddenly I got this passion to want to teach middle school.”
Since “stepping out in faith,” Briley says she now has the opportunity to speak truth more directly into the lives of her students.
