The phone rang and startled the chaplain awake from a deep sleep. She looked at the clock. 2:00 a.m., it read. An anxious voice on the other end said, “Chaplain, can you come now? There’s been an accident at the plant. We’ve lost someone.”

And so the marketplace chaplain went, donning her steel-toed shoes and grabbing her overcoat as she went out the door.

While this is not a common event, this kind of integration into the workplace is not unusual for a chaplain. Not unlike parish ministry, chaplains have the remarkable privilege of being with people in the best and the worst of times, as well as all the mundane moments in between. They are often present for life’s greatest joys as well as deepest pain.

Chaplaincy is a “sent” ministry. As an extension of the pastoral vocation, chaplaincy is a means of taking pastoral vocation into the world in various contexts: whether in the military, hospitals, hospice, or the corporate world. It is a very “in-the-world” kind of work as chaplains spend considerable time with people who might never step into a church building on their own and would certainly never seek the help of a pastor if they needed guidance.

For the rest of this story, visit holinesstoday.org. 

HT January/February 2018: The Flavors of Christian Ministry

While gifts and callings vary greatly among God’s people, one thing unites us: our mission to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15, NIV). Ministry in God’s kingdom takes on a variety of different forms. Some may be called to pastoral ministry, while others are called to evangelism. Still, others are called to teach or to be a chaplain. While no single magazine could ever explore every unique ministry calling,

Holiness Today’s all-new January/February 2018 issue features a wide sampling of the many “flavors” of Christian Ministry. Read more about how God is using people everywhere to further His kingdom!

Subscribe here to get this issue: holinesstoday.org/SubscribePage