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AudioBook information:
Author: Chuck DeGroat
Narrated by: Chuck DeGroat
Release date: October 20, 2026
Audiobook Duration: 6 h 42 min
Summary:Â In a time that rewards personality and platform over integrity and character, author Chuck DeGroat invites us to return to the humble work of deep, lasting transformation.
We have more insights and resources for emotional and spiritual health than ever before, yet it takes one look at the headlines―and even our own lives―to see that true depth of character is still lacking. From the broken trust in the highest political, corporate, and ecclesial offices in the land to the broken places in our own hearts, we’re facing a profound unveiling. How can we ever really know who to count on? How do we make sense of it all? And in a day of quick comebacks and empty apologies, how does slow and lasting change take place?
It won’t be easy, but it will be sacred. Combining rich cultural analysis with pastoral and psychological wisdom, therapist and professor Chuck DeGroat invites us beyond techniques and tactics to offer a revolutionary, hopeful new guide for building the internal and external architecture for deep and sustaining character change.
In Who You’re Becoming, we’ll:
- gently confront the ways we’ve traded character for charisma, formation for information, communion for control, discipleship for display
- think clearly and carefully about how Christlike character grows and matures―in our personal lives, parenting, church and spiritual formation processes, even educational spaces
- explore new discoveries in psychology and neurobiology that reveal how character breaks down―and how it can be rebuilt
- engage ancient and contemporary processes and practices that cultivate strong friendships, grounded leaders, connected marriages, healthy systems, anchored identity, and creative work
The temptation to posture is strong, but the invitation of Christ is deeper still. It’s an invitation not to perform, but to become ourselves: rooted, ripened, and resilient in a fractured and fragmented world.
Reviews:
We’re in crisis. Abandoning our ancient commitment to character, to integrity of soul, we are being ravaged from the inside. These pages, from such a wise, heart-full guide, are truths to heed if we want to be whole. Chuck is a beloved professor and therapist―but more, he’s a friend committed to loving well and telling the truth. And God knows, we sure need the truth right now. This is a book for our disintegrating time. Winn Collier, director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination and author of Love Big, Be Well and A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson
Chuck DeGroat is a soul cardiologist, a wise, kind, and brilliant reader of the human heart. He surgically engages one of the key issues of our era: character. Many have eschewed character for power, notoriety, and disparagement of those who differ from us. This compelling, beautifully written book calls us to become who we, at our best, long to be. Chuck not only helps us envision the glory of a good character, but he also provides clarity about the practices, conversations, and reflection needed to be a presence that manifests the face of God. You are about to embark on a journey that will restore your heart.Dan B. Allender, PhD, professor of counseling psychology, founding president, The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology
In the midst of our unmoored, image-obsessed culture, Dr. Chuck DeGroat offers us the grounding wisdom we so often forget: God is with us as we become ourselves. With kindness and deft insight, DeGroat leads us through the practical, courageous, and often slow work required to cultivate maturity and true character. In so doing, Who You’re Becoming serves as a powerful and needed guide for anyone wanting to go beyond a try-hard faith or mere surface level change―so they can deepen into their truest, beloved selves. Aundi Kolber, MA, LPC, therapist and author of Try Softer and Strong like Water
Rarely do I refer to a book as a “must read.” But rarely do I come across a book as incisive and inspiring as this one. It is indeed a “must read” for anyone taking up the mantle of ministry and leadership. With timeless truths spoken directly to our particular age, Chuck has given us a great gift in this remarkable and healing book. Amanda Held Opelt, author of Holy Unhappiness
At our best and truest we are pilgrims, called into lifelong journeys, which are “cultivated through faith, strengthened through hope, and embodied through love.” In his deeply imagined new book, it is clear that Chuck DeGroat is a true doctor of the soul, paying attention to what matters most in our desire for a coherence born of the reordering of our loves and longings. Drawing us into a prayerful examination of our selves, always both honest and yet hopeful, with his poetic blessing we are invited to ponder more carefully and to live more faithfully. Threaded through with the wisdom of church history and the insight of contemporary science, in their different ways addressing our disposition to fragmentation and our yearning for integration, Who You’re Becoming should find its way into conversations and classrooms the world over―with sons of Adam and daughters of Eve who are becoming more whole people, and therefore more holy people.Steven Garber, author of Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate and Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
Chuck has written a book that should immediately be required reading for all of us, whether we are in formal leadership or not; while character should be our shared concern, we are constantly being tempted to focus on presentation instead. He therefore asks us fair but too often ignored questions, helps us distinguish between personality and character, provides ample wisdom, and consistently points us toward healthy formation that pushes against fragmentation and instead toward wholeness. Please read it slowly and with the courage it requires so that you might experience the hope it promises.Kelly M. Kapic, author of You’re Only Human and Christian Life
Character is not curated. It is cultivated. The gift Chuck gives us in this book is the wisdom of a quarter century as therapist, pastor, and professor. Who You’re Becoming refuses performative authenticity and the fauxnerability that too often passes for Christian maturity. In their place, Chuck offers the slow ripening of the soul moved from survival to connection, from disorder to devotion, from charisma to character. Drawing on Scripture and the wisdom of the Christian tradition, he answers the crisis of character in our narcissistic age with the patient kindness of God. I need this book. So does every leader weary of the masks.Justin S. Holcomb, Episcopal bishop, seminary professor, and author of Rid of My Disgrace
In this beautiful invitation to courageous wholeheartedness, Who You’re Becoming is a gentle and grounded companion on the journey of change. Weaving together a pastoral heart, therapeutic insight, and anchored hope, Chuck lights the way for a compelling and compassionate exploration of who we long to be, and how we long to live.Laura Thien, MSW, LISW-CP, therapist and executive director of GRACE
In Who You’re Becoming, Chuck DeGroat reclaims the lost territory of character formation and shows us a fresh path through an understanding of our nervous system response. Chuck invites us on an exploratory journey, linking our character to our unhealthy patterns of self-protection and disconnection. And of course Chuck invites us into the slow, courageous, and essential work of integration so that the deepest parts of our souls can relax into the love of God. Chuck’s writings have been essential reading in my life for almost a decade, and this book is now top of my recommendation list.Steve Cuss, pastor and author
Chuck DeGroat has written a wise and searching book for a moment when too many leaders have been formed for visibility but not for trustworthiness. Who You’re Becoming offers a penetrating, deeply humane, and spiritually serious vision of character formation that joins theology, psychology, and the slow work of grace in ways that many leaders badly need. I will recommend this book to my clients with enthusiasm and deep appreciation.Tod Bolsinger, AE Sloan Leadership, author of Canoeing the Mountains and the Practicing Change Series
We are living in a moment of profound and painful unveiling, and this labor of love is a gift for such a time as this. With hard-won, embodied wisdom, Chuck locates the truths of modern psychology inside the ancient systems of spiritual formation, calling us beyond the performative and into the deep waters where true character is slowly, courageously and intentionally forged. This is a book that holds a mirror to our current age, and invites us into the long journey from fragmentation to wholeness and from nervous system reactivity into being rooted and grounded in love. Chuck so generously weaves together insights, stories, resources, reflection questions, and practices to help us locate ourselves in these pages, drawing us toward a wholeness and belonging we are meant for and will need in order to resist the perils of this day. He invites us to know even more the God of love who is tending to the restoration of all things. Thank you feels wildly insufficient.Rachael Clinton Chen, trauma practitioner and pastoral leader with The Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology
Many approaches to cultivating Christian character remain curiously disembodied, overlooking how our nervous systems and hidden patterns can quietly subvert our best intentions. In this illuminating work, Chuck DeGroat brings these often-ignored dimensions into the light, drawing on decades of experience as a counselor and the wisdom of a seasoned pastoral theologian. In an age marked by restless striving and spiritual adolescence, this book offers a surprising and beautiful recovery of a slower, truer path―one that leads us to become “rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17). A gem of a book―one to savor, and to revisit.J. Todd Billings, author of The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live
At a time when therapeutic language has become social currency and character formation has become a product rather than a practice, Chuck DeGroat calls us back to the slow, unglamorous, embodied work of actually becoming someone. Drawing on neuroscience, ancient Christian wisdom, and a keen eye for the performance culture of our time, this book refuses every shortcut and offers something rarer than technique: a genuinely integrated vision of what human transformation looks like. What distinguishes this book is that it was written by someone whose life bears witness to everything in it.Elizabeth Pennock, PhD, LPC, associate professor of counseling, director of MA in clinical mental health counseling program, Western Theological Seminary
Chuck DeGroat’s latest book, Who You’re Becoming, is a powerful and much-needed invitation to the slow, sacred work of becoming a whole person. In a world that rewards image over integrity and platform over character, this message could not be more timely. What makes this book especially compelling is that Chuck doesn’t just write about this kind of inner formation he embodies it. Chuck is a person of deep integrity, humility, and courageous self-awareness, and that is exactly why his is a voice we can trust―and why this is a book every single one of us needs to read.Dr. Alison Cook, author of The Secure Soul and host of The Best of You podcast
About the Author:
Chuck DeGroat is a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, where he also serves as executive director of the clinical mental health counseling program. He is an author, licensed therapist, church consultant, and spiritual director. He and his wife, Sara, have two daughters.