Alan T. Baker - Foundations of Chaplaincy: A Practical Guide

Alan Baker offers an accessible and helpful vision for chaplaincy that prioritizes presence and yet offers helpful insights and tools for navigating and thriving in ones life as a chaplain. I see this book being widely used as a resource, not least for my seminary students discerning their call to chaplaincy.

Chuck DeGroat
Western Theological Seminary

The calling and role of chaplains has often been relegated by the church to a second-class status. But chaplains serve on the front lines of ministry, bringing a compassionate presence to those confronting pain, anguish, or despair, and suddenly asking their deepest questions about God. Alan Baker is one of the finest chaplains Ive ever known. As chaplaincy increases even as church attendance decreases, this book will become an indispensable guide. It distills Bakers rich experience into the most thorough and helpful resource available for anyone considering this high and holy calling.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
author of Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage

Chaplaincy is both an art and a science, and Foundations of Chaplaincy provides a thorough exploration of both aspects. Illustrating the journey from calling to credentialing to career competence, this primer offers a helpful picture of the science, or how to do chaplaincy, revealing a comprehensive array of pastoral care scenarios and institutional environments. But the real insight is in the unveiling of the art of chaplaincy, that is, how to strike the precarious balance of serving the diverse spiritual needs of both the religious and unaffiliated, while remaining a fully functioning member of, and therefore completely within the boundaries of, a secular institution; all the while remaining faithful to the mandates of the chaplains own belief and faith tradition. Foundations of Chaplaincy explores this dynamic and challenging undertaking with a deep appreciation for this essential vocation.

Rear Admiral Margaret Grun Kibben
26th Chief of Navy Chaplains

Chaplaincy is a special calling for a unique kind of ministry that only a select few men and women clergy can embrace. It involves working outside and beyond a single faith group to provide spiritual guidance and pastoral care to persons in diverse settings. Chaplains are called to be fluid and open in their approach to ministry to people from various backgrounds. Chaplain Baker captures this well in his writings.

Chaplain Michael L. McCoy
former National Director of Chaplaincy in the US Department of Veterans Affairs

Baker brings his beginnings as a USN Academy plebe through his retirement as the sixteenth Chaplain of the US Marine Corps to this insightful primer on chaplaincy. Foundations of Chaplaincy is both a discourse on the chaplaincy field and a how-to course on the professional world of chaplains, who live in the tension between allegiance to their own faith tradition and assuring the free exercise of all persons in a secular, pluralistic environment. The four functional capabilities of chaplains to provide, facilitate, advise, and care inform chaplains and management alike how this tension is lived out with integrity. Information and insight are peppered with practical stories and biblical examples. Prospective through experienced chaplains can all benefit from absorbing the wisdom of this text.

Jan McCormack
Denver Seminary

Chaplaincy is one of the most interesting and innovative forms of ministry. It finds its roots within the established church, but takes the ministry of care, compassion, and presence into the world in a diversity of healing ways. But what exactly is chaplaincy? What do chaplains do? Why should anyone care? In this interesting and timely book Alan Baker lays out the essence of the tasks of chaplaincy in a way that is clear, accessible, and open to a broad range of people inside and outside of faith communities. Anyone who wants to know about and understand the importance of chaplaincy should read this book.

John Swinton
University of Aberdeen

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2021 Alan T. Baker

All rights reserved

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-7749-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Baker, Alan T., 1956author.

Title: Foundations of chaplaincy : a practical guide / Alan T. Baker.

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A comprehensive introduction, overview, and reference book for the ministry of chaplaincyProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020036695 | ISBN 9780802877499 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Pastoral care. | Chaplains.

Classification: LCC BV4375 .B35 2021 | DDC 253dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036695

For my mentors Charles Carter and Harold Shorty Brown, who gave me hope and inspired a generation through their ministry of presence

Welcome to the most exciting and fastest-growing segment of specialized ministry: chaplaincy. It is distinct from mainstream pastoral models because the focus is delivering a ministry of presence to people outside of a church. While local-church models typically reinforce a wagon-wheel approach, where the pastor remains at the center and the outside community follows the spokes inward, chaplains invert the wagon-wheel model by providing their presence where people live and work along the outer wheel rim. In our current culture, as fewer people identify with a specific religion or attend religious services, Americans may be more likely to meet a chaplain than a local clergy person at a congregation. Chaplaincy is ministry in motion. It is filled with quick-moving fire trucks, police cars, and military Humvees. It sails over the ocean on cruise liners and aircraft carriers. It paces hygienically clean operating rooms and grimy factory floors. It ministers to those behind bars as well as those taking the bar exam. Chaplains walk the sidelines of the football field and tread the battlefield.

No other religious vocation offers the vibrancy of chaplaincy. This model emphasizes roadside ministry over residential ministry. It is constantly evolving, immensely challenging, fast paced, and deeply fulfilling. Yet chaplaincy is not about the context of a chaplains geography or the rewarding variety of vocational settings. For chaplains, it is all about looking into the faces and hearts of humans like yourself. It is laboring with and loving fellow sojourners traveling alongside you as together you experience the journey of life.

More than anything else, chaplaincy is being present among those you serve: crying, laughing, worshiping, celebrating, mourning, storytelling, and comforting. Chaplaincy first sends you out to places and then draws you in toward people. Chaplain positions are filled by people who are encouragers, caregivers, helpers, advocates, and listeners. Core to the chaplain is a commission to bear the image of God, despite your own obvious imperfections and brokenness, to the faces and hearts of those who otherwise may never enter a house of worship except for a wedding or a funeral.

Chaplains are innovators in their organizations. They inspire others to become better versions of themselves. Chaplains bring meaningful change to institutions due to their commitment to people within the organization. They are chartered by their organization to stand as both bridge and buffer between the institution and its people. At times, you encourage those entrusted to you to keep the long look and help them not to wane either in their character or in hope. At other times you serve as a buffer between the organization and its people, ensuring that those entrusted with power will listen to what they must hear. You do this in spite of, and often in trepidation of, personal consequences to yourself. The beauty and wonder of your calling as a chaplain are that the institution expects no less from you. You are recognized as someone who cares for everyone, even when others cannot. You are entrusted with bearing the presence of God into malevolent and hostile situations. You are called upon to advocate for those who suffer. You are concerned for those who are ill or injured. You serve the dying and honor the dead.