A lot of times when you're going through something hard or difficult you tend to get the idea that you're out there all by yourself and nobody else has ever been through this or done this exactly the way you have and it's never

hurt as much as it hurts you and I think what both Jesus calling and I really

think Jesus always will as well I have done as they've said to people there is

somebody who knows and understands because he's been there. He was there before you

got there and he's ready to walk through it with you and that person is Jesus.

Welcome to the Experience Jesus Calling Podcast. Chuck Wellington is the co-founder of the Covenant

Group and owner of Christian Supply in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Chuck tells the story of what led him to work in the world of Christian products

and shares his thought on the new book from Sarah Young, Jesus Always Always.

My name is Chuck Wallington.

I currently serve as president of Christian Supply Incorporated, which is a large family-owned Christian

retail store in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

I literally grew up in a Christian bookstore.

My parents opened it about two years before I was born,

so a little over 60 years ago.

And they, literally, my crib was in the back of the store, my playpen was in the back of the store.

When I turned about 13 or 14, I started working at the store in the afternoons, sweeping the floors and doing things, and just kind of grew up in the industry and have never done anything else, don't want to do anything else, and even through college worked here, probably close to full time, even in college years, and been full time ever since.

I was captured early on by just the thought that I could do a serving a business that also had

spiritual impact on people through the products that we sold. I'm not sure I would have gone into retail if it was just quote-in-quote retail, but

Christian retail had a ministry aspect that really appealed to that side of me and that privilege of being able to put a different

Bible in people's hands or to sell them a book that meant a need that they were going

through or even recommend a gift product or something that was just ideal or a song off a CD that I could introduce them to just really sort of let my fire from almost the day I walked in here.

...