Uncle Charlie and Jesus’ Love

This past Sunday, Shelly and I both taught Sunday School lessons at our church in Charlotte, North Carolina: Caldwell Presbyterian Church. I taught the adult lesson for our “ACE Sunday School” class on the second chapter of Acts, and Shelly taught a lesson on the theme, “Love and Serve Your Neighbor.” In the course of finding resources for her kids’ lesson, Shelly found VBG (“Valued By God”) and Carlitos, a plush monkey that is part of the Christian outreach ministry of “Uncle Charlie.” Shelly and her partner in Children’s Ministries at Westminster Presbyterian Church In Lubbock, Texas at the time, Leslie Roach, discovered “Uncle Charlie” back in the early 2000s, and brought him to our church to lead worship for everyone.

There are SO many wonderful songs by Uncle Charlie! After we moved from Lubbock to Oklahoma City in 2006, Shelly was able to help bring Uncle Charlie, Rachel Sanchez, and their praise band to our new church, First Presbyterian of Edmond, again through Children’s Ministries and her work with Kristin Leard, who was the Director of Kids Ministries at the time and served with her husband, David Leard, who was one of our Associate Pastors. I’m sure everyone who has ever heard Uncle Charlie sing remembers his song, “The Fruit of the Spirit,” and may even be able to sing the words from memory! I know I can. That song and many more videos are featured in their VBG smartphone app. Many are also previewed on the official Uncle Charlie YouTube channel.

I LOVE so many songs by Uncle Charlie and Rachel Sanchez. “Sanctuary” is definitely another one of my favorites. Their “Making Melodies” music album was one of our favorites to play in the car and at home as our kids were growing up.

Driving to Sunday School and church this past weekend, Shelly played the 14 minute video, “Life is Like a Puzzle.” Uncle Charlie is not only a master storyteller, but also a gifted communicator with kids as well as adults. Those gifts really shine through in this video, which “connected the dots” for me as I wanted to understand what happened to Uncle Charlie soon after he came to our church in Edmond, Oklahoma in the late 2000s. The video, “My Miracle Story” which Uncle Charlie recorded in 2015, 7 years after he had a near-fatal car accident that changed the course of his life forever, also provides more background about these dramatic as well as miraculous events.

I am very thankful, personally, for the life, ministry, and creative love shared by Uncle Charlie and his team over the years. This past weekend, Shelly and I recorded a new episode of our audio podcast together, “Wes and Shelly Share,” about fall traditions and memories.

As a result of related Facebook discussions, Shelly shared about Uncle Charlie and his amazing VBG app. This “good news” is too good to keep to myself, so I decided to share this blog post today before school!

I hope you will take some time to download the VBG smartphone app and listen to some of the songs and videos by Uncle Charlie. There are lots of bad things going on in our world, but as Christians we have GOOD NEWS to share EVERY DAY. Uncle Charlie reminds me and reminds us that GOD LOVES US, God is real, God values YOU, and God still acts in MIRACULOUS ways through both the good times and bad times of our lives.

Praise God, and thank God for Uncle Charlie!