Meet Chuck Denison: Encourage Incorporated

RETREATS & CONFERENCES

Biography
Chuck Denison is a speaker, author, professor, pastor, consultant, coach and musician. Ordained in 1980, he has been a Presbyterian minister for nearly 30 years. He pastored churches in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio before founding New Hope Presbyterian Church in 1993. This church became the denomination's fastest growing new church and eventually led to a career in consulting, training and teaching church development. He joined the staff of General Assembly in 2002 and spent 4 years traveling as the Associate for New Church Development. In 2006 he and his wife, Cindy, moved to beautiful Big Sky MT where Chuck invests half time pastoring the newly formed Big Sky Community Church (PC USA), and half time consulting and coaching new churches.

His books include: Mainline Manifesto: The Inevitable New Church (Chalice); The Artist's Way of Preaching (Westminster/John Knox) and the denomination's handbook on new church development: Connectional Church Development: A Presbytery Handbook for Creating New Churches. He has taught at Dubuque Theological Seminary and Columbia Theological Seminary.

He is an avid jazz guitar player, and frequently performs around the Big Sky resort area. His book on jazz is titled: The Great American Songbook: Stories Behind the Standards.

Click here to read: Musician on a Mission

Feedback from others:
What others have said about Chuck Denison’s teaching and retreats:

I've never been in a class that accomplished the purpose of Christian community like that class did…. you were able to get us to live into the subject matter and do it together, allowing much of the learning to come from each other. What you accomplished was really unique and I think if you could write it up in some way it could be helpful to any Christian educator, whether they
be in the church or the academy.

Nathan Atwood
United Methodist Regional Youth Director

I have very much enjoyed the experience of working with poetry as a way to
develop a different part of my spirituality, as I work on being a spiritual
leader in this context. It has been feeding for my preaching life and my
spiritual life….

Debbie Bronkema
PCUSA Pastor

“Excellent ! – I really enjoyed the stories and how they related to Bible passages.”

Presbyterian CLP

Chuck was prepared, creative, meant a lot to me personally, some new insights, lines, modeled vulnerability and a variety of ways to present.

Presbyterian Pastor

Background and Experience
From earliest memories, I have always felt called to become a Presbyterian minister. It was an odd feeling of predestination. That didn't stop me, however, from throwing myself into "the 60's." I finally committed my life to Christ in 1973. Since then ….

Trininty Bible Institute
a small pentecostal Bible College in rural North Dakota!
Gordon College, B.A. in Theology, 1977
Met Cindy there and we married in 1977 as well!
Gordon-Conwell Seminary, M-Div. 1980
Flora Presbyterian Church
We moved to Flora in 1980 and began a 6 year renewal of a small country church. Our church grew from 30 - 100, and our family grew from just us, to Rebekah, Charlie, and our loyal dog, Amanda.
First Pres of Rochelle IL
In 1987 we started in Rochelle, IL. Over a wonderful 5 years we made so many friends! The church grew from 175 to 350, I started The Country Parson: A Journal for Pastoral Spirituality and began to write for Leadership Magazine.
Second Pres, Newark OH
I tried to be a tall steeple pastor - Hah! Lasted 18 months.
New Hope Presbyterian Church
Fishers IN was a sprawling, rapidly growing suburb of Indianapolis with no Presbyterian presence. We took care of that, going from 12 folks to over 500 attending, over the course of seven years.
General Assembly Staff
I joined the staff of GA as Associate for New Church Development in 2002. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet and work with people, presbyteries and churches all across the denomination.
Big Sky, MT
After four years of travel and office, I was ready to move to the mountains, and help start the Presbyterian Church in Big Sky MT, a ski resort in the heart of the Rockies. What a beautiful place!