Chris Schimel graduated with a ministerial degree in 1973 from Mount Vernon Bible College in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and then later received his master of divinity degree from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has served in churches in California and Colorado, but currently makes his home in western New York, where he consults and travels to spread the Touch One message from his first book. Schimel and his wife, Shirley, have two grown sons.