Chuck Swindoll is the senior pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas. He also has a daily Bible-teaching radio ministry, Insight for Living, which many have listened to since 1977. The program is distributed worldwide to radio stations and via the Internet. Besides the traditional radio broadcasting, Web streaming, podcasting, and even satellite radio are also employed to spread the message of the Gospel. A retail version of Chuck's messages are available as compact discs and in MP3 format. This teaching ministry can be heard in seven of the world's top ten languages. Insight for Living also has active Web sites in Spanish, Arabic, Polish and Portuguese, and even some of the publication materials are produced in these languages as well.
Chuck, as he is often called, had planned to become a mechanical engineer. While serving in the Marines in Okinawa in the 1950s, he felt the call to the ministry. He has shared this story from the pulpit, as well as on Insight for Living.
Chuck’s bunk mate in Okinawa was named Eddie. When Eddie found out Chuck was a Christian, he told ”Swindle” right off that he had no wish to be evangelized and Chuck should back off. As he reclined in the top bunk, Chuck would read the Bible and review the verses he was committing to memory. He tried to think of some way he could interest Eddie in learning about the Lord Jesus.
One day he handed Eddie some of his verse cards and asked Eddie to help him go over the words. This was repeated many times with dozens of verses. Most were about the Gospel and salvation, for example, John 3:16. Chuck would start saying the verse and intentionally hesitate at key words, which then prompted Eddie to give him the word to continue. This went on and on, over and over again.
It was about thirty years later that Chuck received a phone call. On the other end, someone said, “Hey, Swindle!” He knew immediately it had to be Eddie. Eddie said to him, “Hey, you know that trick you played on me in Okinawa? Well, it worked! I’m loving Jesus now!”
This speaks of the power of God and the sure and eventual completion of the plans He has. As is stated in Isaiah 55:10-11, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
Dr. Swindoll served as pastor of churches in Texas, Massachusetts and California before returning to Texas in 1994 to become the president of Dallas Theological Seminary. He and a group of fellow believers established the non-denominational Stonebriar Community Church in 1998. Additional information on Chuck’s ministries can be found at www.stonebriar.org and https://insight.org/