“Chuck is kind, compassionate, and courageous enough to speak necessary truths. I have experienced more transformation in the past six months with Chuck’s spiritual direction than I have in years of counseling.” -Rusty M., Pastor. __
“When I came to Chuck, I was suffering from trauma far more significant than I realized. Over the past year he has been a gracious and empathetic counselor, helping me to more clearly discern the voice of Jesus in my life and to patiently move toward wholeness and healing.” -Andy B., Pastor
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“Chuck walked our staff through a series of significant conversations about our shared anxiety, needs, and hopes for the future. We lamented and laughed and learned a lot.”
-Anonymous
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“Our intensive experience radically shifted our experience of one another. We had no idea about the hidden resentments and longings within, and though there will be bumps along the way, we’re connected to one another and Jesus.”
-Jen and Tom
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“My 5 days with Chuck brought clarity in so many ways. I was emotionally, spiritually, and vocationally lost. I can’t believe how much we unearthed in our time together.”
-Jeff M.
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“Chuck has walked with me from the very beginnings of acknowledging sexual abuse in my past to seeing it in my marriage and seeing me through painful conversations, grief, trauma, and healing. I am not the same person as when we first started. He was secure, strong, challenging, and gentle throughout.”
-Sarah W.
Chuck — I read the following on Donald Miller’s blog a few weeks ago and it’s been haunting me ever since.. You post reminded me of it.
I was raised to believe that the quality of a man’s life would greatly increase, not with the gain of status or success, not by his heart’s knowing romance or by prosperity in industry or academia, but by his nearness to God. It confuses me that Christian living is not more simple. The gospel, the very good news, is simple, but this is a gate; the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsom labor. God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like the birds, dress him like the flowers, and befriend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last. Most believers on the path have found that life is constructed specifically and brilliantly to squeeze a man into association with the owner heaven. It is a struggle, with labor pains and thorny landscape, bloody hands and sweaty brow, head in hands, moments of severe loneliness and questioning, moments of ache and desire. All this leads to God. God is not merely the reason behind existence, nor the curer of ills and confusion. Matter and thought are a canvas on which God paints; a painting with tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward God. And the dance is not so graceful as we might think. For a while we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. He lowers His head, whispers soft and confident, “You will dance to the beat of ‘Amazing Grace’ or you will not dance at all.” So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a taxing dance to learn.But once learned, don’t we glide. And don’t we sway. And don’t we bury our head in His chest. And don’t we love to dance.This passage was an excerpt from Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, which was later reissued as Through Painted Deserts.