Week 1: Orientation and Training
With other chaplaincy-majoring students, we enrolled at the institution. Orientation and becoming acquainted with various staff members and resources were part of the training's first week. Additionally, we participated in a number of induction courses and programs where various heads of departments outlined the standards that apply to chaplains. In addition, we were required to read and comprehend material that would be completed by the end of the course. The main goal of the first was to familiarize us with the field of chaplaincy and the kinds of responsibilities chaplains carry out.
Week 2: Faith and Chaplaincy Counseling
The second week revolved around the concepts of faith and chaplaincy counseling. We were introduced to the nature of faith and chaplaincy counseling. The activities of this week included exploring and reflecting on complexity on people’s thought regarding their faith. In addition to that, we were taught various ways of making people understand that Christ loves them and how to make a positive impact on people’s lives. Activities for chaplaincy and faith counseling were guided by the following topics: bereavement, relationship problems, gender identity and family issues. During the second week, we were taught that the primary task of chaplains is to ensure the cognitive wellbeing of their subjects.
Week 3: Discipleship and Church Ministry
By the time we reached the third week, we had already gotten an empirical overview of the nature of chaplaincy. The third week was a little bit complex than the second because we were introduced to discipleship and church ministry. The contours and elements of discipleship were revealed during this week. The trainer told us that discipleship is a voluntary quest of evangelizing to believers and non-believers. We were told to form groups where we would exercise different elements of discipleship such assurance of faith, voluntary service and centering our lives on church’s and people’s ministry. The third week was important because it gave us an opportunity to apply, practice and live life of chaplains.
Week 4: Leading Pastoral or Religious Services
During week 4, we were taught how to lead pastoral or religious services. During this week we were introduced to old and new testament. Introduction to the Old and New Testament entailed teaching and application of Christian literature. We were given research papers whereby we were required to explore different themes of the Old and New Testament. The research papers needed us to critically examine various texts and empirical sources to give us a holistic overview of how to pass religious themes and messages to congregations. After the completion of the fourth week, I was able to practice and express various major themes of the Old and New Testament. The fourth week helped me to understand ideological views regarding Christian literature and how to turn or translate them into values.
Week 5: Officiating Funerals and Wedding Ceremonies
During the fifth week, we were taught how to officiate funerals and wedding ceremonies. In week 5, we were told that standing in the midst of grief was one of the primary roles of chaplains. Therefore, we were taught how to stand in the middle of grieving subjects. We were imparted with different religious practices of bringing closure to families and affirming life. The religious practices included the services of death and resurrection, explaining to people why they are gathered together, scripture reading and use of songs in funerals. We were also taught different requirements of officiating weddings. The trainers showed us how to be ordained to become a wedding official, contacting authorities regarding the issuance of marriage certificates and how conduct wedding ceremonies.
Week 6: Spirituality
The training during week 6 revolved around the concept of spirituality. Activities of the week entailed paying special focus to spiritual lives of people. We were told to form groups of twos whereby we were required to evaluate spirituality of our colleagues for a whole week. The supervisors needed us to enter into each other spiritual world and assess issues that affect our colleague’s spirituality. The tasks were initiated to gauge our ability to deal with matters of spirituality. The activities were also geared to measure our capacity to deal with issues related to spiritual care. After the completion of week, I learned how to conduct spiritual assessment and respect people's ability to determine their spirituality.
Week 7: Pastoral Practicum and Skill Development
The sixth week was the climax of the training. At this point, I had started to build enough confidence to handle the tasks of chaplaincy. During the seventh week, we dug deeper into the complexities of pastoral practicum. Our trainers advanced the scope of pastoral practicum by allowing us to practice the skills we have learned in the previous weeks under supervision. The move was aimed at helping us to develop our theological skills and to deepen our understanding of the nature of chaplaincy. The outcomes of the supervised assessment had to be agreeable between the trainees and the trainers. After the completion of tasks in week 7, I was able to learn how to create and enhance my professional identity. I also learned how to integrate theology into my life and the world at large.
Week 8: Religious Landscape in the United States
During week six we were introduced to the religious landscape in the United States. During this week we were required to investigate the relationship between religion and culture of the people of United States. The trainers introduced us to different socio-cultural and sociological theories that helped to form an empirical framework of understanding religion in the American society. In addition to that during the seventh week, we were introduced to different forms of religion in the United States including Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism. The concepts of secularism and absence of religious were also introduced at this stage. After the completion of the eighth week, I was able to understand the role of religion in the American society.
Week 9: Theoretical Foundations of Chaplaincy
In week 8, we were introduced to theoretical foundations of chaplaincy. During this stage were introduced to different forms of chaplaincy including school, hospital and military chaplaincy. The theoretical foundations were intended to put the practice of chaplaincy in the above contexts. After the completion of week eight, my supervisor evaluated my ability to articulate and exercise different roles of chaplains. The supervisor also examined my ability to differentiate different form of chaplaincy. Lastly, every trainee during the ninth week was required to demonstrate the ability to reflect theologically and to exercise different kinds of literature on chaplaincy.
Week 10: Palliative and Hospice Care
During week 10, we were introduced to palliative and hospice care. Primarily, palliative and hospice care are geared to taking care of patients who are almost meeting the end of their lives. The activities of week 10 revolved around balancing and controlling psychological and spiritual feelings while dealing with patients under palliative and hospice care. During this time I learned to balance spiritual and emotional need of patients. My supervisor assigned me to a stage four cancer patients at the end of the week, and I was supposed to exercise different skills in palliative care. After spending a whole weekend with the patient, I learned how to create a supportive environment around patients.
Week 11: Teaching Religion in Schools
By week 11 I had familiarized myself with the nature of chaplaincy. During week 11 we were supposed to teach religion to a school. My supervisor assigned me to a high school whereby I was supposed to teach religion for two hours. The aim of the exercise was to help to learn how to articulate and express different element of chaplaincy. The activity was also geared to help me understand the role of religion in American schools. After completing the task, I learned various theological and theoretical factors affecting teaching in American schools. Also, I was able to sharpen my skills of expressing religious opinions.
Week 12: Moral Dimensions of Chaplaincy
Week 12 involved discussion about moral dimensions of chaplaincy. We were introduced to ethics that surround the career chaplaincy. The twelfth week entailed activities that guided us to understand the will of God and responsibility plus their role in chaplaincy. Moral issues that concern the field of chaplaincy were highlighted during this stage. We were taught how to apply elements of ethics at our lines of duty. After the completion of the week 12, I was able to understand the complexity and diversity of Christian ethics. I also learned how to analyze and evaluate arguments and factors that influence Christian ethics.
Week 13: Assessment and Community Development
Week 13 marked the end of our training. Since it was the last week, the activities that characterized it were assessments to measure our progress after thirteen weeks of training. We were given opportunities to practice what we learned during the training. We were also told to write a report about our time at the training center. Also, at this stage, the trainers introduced us to community development. Activities about community development entailed writing and preaching to a community audience. Community development also involved attending community workshops to understand the complexities of community systems. Community development helped me to know how to use religion to make positive impacts in the community.
Reflection
Chaplaincy is a voluntary career that calls for dedication and preparedness to traverse the complexities of people and the world. Chaplaincy requires individuals to sacrifice their lives and time in the service for humanity. The primary role of chaplaincy is to connect with people, offer spiritual guidance and to provide solace during bad times. Therefore, chaplains are required to understand different contexts that they are supposed to serve such as the military, schools, and hospitals. In this case, chaplains should understand what the job entails to measure their abilities to take up the tasks involved.
The ideal starting point of becoming a better chaplain is to understand the ins and outs of the job. Therefore, a chaplain should strive to understand the complexities of different environment that they are supposed to serve. Understanding the complexities of the job includes getting an overview of different types of chaplains in the society. For instance, the training taught me how to differentiate various contexts of chaplaincy such as military, schools, and hospitals. The theoretical foundations of the above contexts helped me to create an outline of expectation of a chaplain depending on the context. In addition to that, becoming a chaplain requires one to understand the history of the profession to evaluate what makes the vocation unique. Learning the history of chaplaincy helps one to form a theoretical framework for understanding what the future hold for the ministry.
In addition to that, the training taught me how to account for things that cannot be measured. For instance, themes of religion are metaphysical, and they require some level of understanding to enable chaplains to translate them to their congregations. Therefore, chaplains need to understand various ways to measure and to put metaphysical elements of chaplaincy into practice to help their subjects to invest in things they cannot see such as faith. For instance, ministering to military soldiers who are likely to kill or to be killed requires enormous cognitive and theological skills to help them to fight for their country and to face death with bravery. In this case, a chaplain has to understand moral and ethical dilemmas brought about by the military to strike a balance while offering spiritual guidance.
Additionally, chaplaincy entails traversing through different challenges and sufferings that are brought about the jobs. For instance, chaplains face challenges from social theories and perspectives such as feminism, modernism, and homosexuality. The above social perspectives usually divide people into two camps, and they require chaplains to strike a balance while dealing with their subjects. In this case, chaplains must formulate an analytical approach to deal with the above social nuances. The training helped me to understand various sociological and socio-culture theories that will help me to deal with diverse perspectives.
In addition to that, chaplains in their duties are required to work with people from diverse religious backgrounds. In other words, chaplains are required to offer spiritual guidance to individuals who do not believe and they have to convince them to invest in faith because it will help to face another day. Primarily, empirical studies have indicated that even if a chaplain is affiliated to a certain religion, they must be open to offering their services to people from different walks of life. Thus, the training helped me to understand different religious orientations such as secularism, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism. Moreover, the training taught how to deal with issues such as gender identity, relationship problems, and family issues. As a result, I will be able to deal with individuals who subscribe to above orientations.
Furthermore, chaplains suffer from challenges such as violence, hate crimes, coercion while some live in the midst of military combat. For that reason, a chaplain must be prepared to face these kinds of physical and emotional sufferings. In this case, the training will help me to become a better chaplain because it trained us how to handle mental constructs such as fear if death. In this case, the training taught me that to become a good chaplain I must be prepared to face death especially if I choose to work in the military.
Offering spiritual guidance requires one to make rational decisions. In this case, chaplains are not supposed to act before they examine all the information and facts at hand. Therefore, chaplains should traverse between information and ambiguous facts to enable them to come up with the best solutions and decisions. In addition to that, chaplains must maintain high confidentiality to earn maximum trust from their subjects. Like therapists, chaplains should ensure that sensitive information does not leak to the public. For instance, in palliative and hospice care chaplains should avoid bleach of information because if it ends in the wrong hands, patients might succumb because of the impact. The training taught me how to ensure high levels of confidentiality especially in the contexts of palliative and hospice care. Also, the practice taught me that a chaplain who cannot be trusted loses his or her effectiveness as a spiritual leader.
Furthermore, chaplains must be available for emotional and spiritual guidance at all times. Chaplaincy is a minimalist kind of life that requires individuals to sacrifice the most important things in their lives to serve humanity. For instance, military chaplains leave their families behind to offer their services in battlefields. During the training, we were told that chaplaincy entails centering our lives on religious ministry and service to other people.
Empirical studies have indicated that every chaplain needs to be spiritually strong. In this case, to strengthen other people’s spirituality chaplains must be spiritually sturdy. The sturdiness helps chaplains to give spiritual guidance without being drained emotionally. Keeping other people spiritually awake requires one to be morally fit and be prepared to embark on a spiritual journey. Spirituality is achieved by reading and understanding theological literature. Theological literature helps chaplain to distinguish different elements of faith and spiritual expectations. The training equipped me with spiritual skills by helping to evaluate spirituality of other people. The training also helped to gauge my ability to deal with the spirituality of my subjects. In addition to that, spiritual strength allows chaplains to meet spiritual needs of strangers. In other words, chaplains who are spiritually strong can inspire and help people who they might not meet again. Primarily, spirituality allows chaplains to form or to create meaningful bonds with people on a regular basis. The training helped to build spiritual relationships with different people including students and patients, especially in desperate circumstances.
The other lesson that I deducted from the training is ethical and moral dimensions that shape the field. Understanding ethics and moral components of chaplaincy helped me to form an empirical framework for balancing client’s need and moral expectations of religion. For instance, in palliative care, there are patients who would like a chaplain to end their lives by pulling the plug. In this case, ethics of chaplaincy helps chaplains to know how to respond to such situations. Primarily, ethics and morality of chaplaincy require individual to remember why they embarked on the journey in the first place.
Lastly, chaplains must depict specific constructs such as empathy, care, and compassion for their congregation. Empathy helps chaplains to work with people who are in vulnerable situations such as those who are almost meeting the end of their life. The training helped to connect with vulnerable people, a skill that will help me to become a better chaplain.
In conclusion, chaplaincy is a voluntary journey that requires dedication and selflessness. The thirteen weeks of training equipped me with necessary skills of becoming a chaplain. The skills from the training are parallel to the ones outlined by empirical studies. These skills include ethics, spirituality, dealing with challenges, making rational decisions and understanding the nature of chaplaincy. For instance, the training helped to learn how to deal with problems such as religious differences in my congregation. In this case, the training helped to learn how to connect with people from different religious and cultural backgrounds. The above skills will help me to become a better chaplain.
Bibliography
Bergen, Doris L. The Sword of the Lord: Military Chaplains from the First to the Twenty-First Century. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004.
Borderud, S. R. 2003. “Serving Two Masters: The Development of American Military Chaplaincy, 1860-1920. By Richard M. Budd. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. 191 Pp. $45.00”. Journal of Church and State. 45, no. 1: 180-18.
Dorsett, Lyle W. Serving God and Country: U.S. Military Chaplains in World War II. 2013.
Paget, Naomi K., and Janet R. McCormack. The Work of the Chaplain. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2006.
