I am deeply grieved over the death of Chuck Colson. He was at the top of my list of the people I admire most in life.  I first met him through Annie Van Vooren who was active in Prison Fellowship, the organization Chuck founded.  She informed him about Southeast Christian Church, “an unusual megachurch”, and shared some of my sermon tapes with him.  You can imagine what a boost it was to my ego when I discovered he had actually listened to some of the sermons and then invited me to speak at a conference for Prison Fellowship Volunteers.

Chuck Colson  spoke several times at Southeast, including an Easter service at Freedom Hall.  We were privileged to entertain him in our home on occasion.  He was an encourager and an inspiration to me.   Chuck loved Southeast Christian Church and at times used it as an example to counter people’s skepticism about megachurches preaching a “feel good” gospel. The fact that he  listened to some of my sermons and he asked  me to preview his book, “The Body” was a great honor.   When I was hospitalized in India Chuck telephoned me and offered to use his influence to fly me home in a medical plane.  He had hundreds of friends he has much more in common with than me but I’ll never forget his personal concern.

He was a modern C.S. Lewis.  I always considered him the most perceptive and articulate spokesman for the Christian World View.   I learned a lot from observing Chuck Colson and reading nearly everything he wrote.  He was very concerned about Christian leaders, “Softening the gospel” and refusing to get involved in anything, “political”.  He urged believers to obey both the Great Commission to make disciples and the cultural commission to “have dominion and subdue the earth.”

Chuck was also our Apostle Paul – a brilliant, proud man who was “Knocked off his horse” at Watergate and humbled.  And God used him mightily from that point. Someone described him as, “the most thoroughly converted man he’d ever met.

Chuck was a warm, joyful person.  I wasn’t a close friend but every time I’d see him he would bolt  past my extended right hand and engulf me in a massive embrace.  That took a while for me to get used to.  But he did that with everyone he knew.

As you know, his passion was prison ministry and he spent every Easter visiting prisons.  I once visited Lorton Prison with Chuck Colson.  I struck up a conversation with a prisoner on death row and asked several questions about his home and family, trying tactfully to find a way to talk with him about his faith.  Chuck Colson came up in the middle of our conversation and shook hands with the prisoner through the prison bars and said, “Hi, I’m Chuck Colson.  Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?”.   Immediately the two began conversing about what was eternally important.  I was convicted of my timidity.  That prisoner responded respectfully because he knew why we were there.  There was no need to beat around the bush.  Chuck’s authenticity and forthrightness served the Lord well whether talking with a prisoner or a CNN reporter.

I am so saddened by his passing that I am in tears as I write this.  A Sunday morning headline in one paper read, “Evil mind behind Nixon’s Watergate Break-In dies.”  I wanted to shout, “Do you not realize that a prince and a great man has fallen in Israel this day?” (2 Samuel 3:38)

I will miss him greatly.