Ted Czochanski

Both my wife and I have quite a few things in common. In addition to sharing the same birth date, we both have been married for 37 years and share the same wedding anniversary. This despite the fact that while I was born in the United States, she was born in Germany.

We both came to know the Lord about the same time in 1973, with me receiving Jesus as my Savior a few months earlier. This has relevance because neither of us were brought up in a Christian home but were raised in families which had a religious background. At that time we both figured that if our good deeds outweighed our bad deeds then we'd get to enter heaven. Then a friend at work shared the gospel with me. So much for good works, we opted for grace instead.

After high school, I attended Rutgers University majoring in Accounting and Business Administration. It was about the time the war in Vietnam was heating up so I abbreviated my studies and chose to serve my country by enlisting in the U.S. Navy serving at sea for several years. Upon completion of my active duty I commenced to work in industry until we felt God's call upon us in 1988 to enter ministry full time. We had then been Christians for fifteen years. This presented a major life reassessment since I would have to leave an excellent job at A.T.&T. Corporate Headquarters. Combined with our years of involvement at two local churches (a great training ground for ministry) I completed Moody Bible and Berean Bible external studies. Which brings me to my involvement at Christian Center.

I have been the Pastor of Discipleship and Small Groups since 1999 and consider community to be one of the priority teachings of the New Testament. All a person would need to do is understand that God calls us to a personal relationship with Himself and consider all those "one-another" relationships in the New Testament to realize that the Christian life is to be lived out in community. To that end I believe that I am fulfilling the biblical mandate to disciple those who come to know Christ and encourage them to become involved in their local church.

On a family note, both our daughters are married to Christian men and we have four grandchildren all of whom live in Kalispell or Missoula, Montana. It is a great blessing to have our children and grandchildren close by. To that end, I believe that we are personally outfitting our family and their families to be brought up in the discipline and knowledge of the Lord.

discipleship@kalispellchristiancenter.org