Six years ago today, I started work as a corporate chaplain – yup -right here in secular New England. Workplace chaplaincy is unusual here in the northeast USA, yet is much more common in the ‘Bible belt’ of the US. Maybe it started with the pilgrim fathers who ruled that every workplace should have a chaplain. In the modern era, it started after World War 2 when men returning from the battlefield to the factory had difficulties keeping their personal lives from impacting their job performance. The tobacco company Philip Morris were the first to employ workplace chaplains to provide spiritual, emotional, relational care to their employees. The idea quickly caught on and today, the Detroit motor companies Ford, GM and Chrysler, Coca Cola, and hundreds of other employers big, medium and small employ workplace chaplains as a caring benefit for their staff. Of course, the military has employed chaplains from the very start, and professional sports teams all have chaplains.
Today, many companies use workplace chaplaincy agencies to provide care for their employees. Marketplace Chaplains in the biggest such agency with around 3,000 chaplains in service, many of whom are co-vocational church ministers. Corporate Chaplains of America is second with about 300 chaplain in service, many of whom are full time.
I worked with Corporate Chaplains of America (CCA), part time, covering three locals companies with a total of 250 employees, while also working part time as a hospital chaplain, planting a church, and working my way through four units of Clinical Pastoral Education. It was too much, and after three years with CCA I stepped back to focus full time on hospital chaplaincy, while still pastoring my new-start church. It was good work, with great people, and a wonderful privilege. I look back on those times, and especially the people I served with warmth and thanks.
I’d encourage any aspiring chaplain to consider workplace chaplaincy. We bring a depth of personal-knowing and spiritual care that mere ’employee assistance programs’ can’t hope to achieve. It’s the Lord’s work in the place where people are – their work. Finally, I’d like to share CCA’s chaplain’s motto – which I think says it all. “Our mission is to build caring relationships with the hope of gaining permission to share the life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ in a non-threatening manner.”