Chris Sligh is the son of Chuck and Susan Sligh, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist missionaries to American military servicemen in Europe. Chuck Sligh is an accomplished guitarist and passed his love of music to his three sons, of whom Chris is the eldest. Chris Sligh was born in Madison, Tennessee and moved to Durham, North Carolina with his family when he was three years old. Chris Sligh spent ten years with his family in Wiesbaden, Germany; despite this, he does not speak German. Although Sligh has been singing since high school, as Adam Fisher, the lead guitarist of Chris' band noted, he "grew up listening only to classical music in a regimented upbringing."