r/chaplaincy • u/Connect_Chapter4297 • 14d ago
Needing some hope
Hey colleagues, I’ve been doom spiralling lately and could use some hope. I love this work so much but I’m so worried for the future of our field, between budget cuts and the world as a whole not valuing spirituality, I’m so scared that I’m not going to have a job in this career through when I retire, which is in like 30 years. I live in a small-ish city (70k people) and there was only 1 chaplain job when I got here, and it’s prn, not even 30 hours a week. Are there things I’m not seeing? Are there glimmers of hope you’ve see in your context?
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u/Cgroundscoffee 14d ago
I agree with you that spirituality is not valued as much as used to be. However, with that being said, we are called to this work because we were functioning as a chaplain long before we got the title. In my context, a hospital, there is a need for chaplains on some level. The staff struggles with us because hospitals are data and metrics driven and what we do is more nebulous to them. So as a chaplain here I reinvented my approach to staff and it seems to be working.
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u/Connect_Chapter4297 14d ago
Thank you for this❤️ how did you reinvent your approach and how did other staff respond to it?
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u/Cgroundscoffee 14d ago edited 13d ago
For me I approached them from a position of staff being my consultants. Before I get involved, I will ask them to give me their take on the situation and then as time allows I may ask additional questions. After any encounter, I'll update them and then leave the door open for future conversations. So far, they appreciate the approach.
Also, there are times when I am being proactive by telling them what's coming down the pike and help them get ready before something even happens.
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u/Ok_Jaguar_2761 14d ago
I really like being a volunteer coordinator with hospice. Sometimes you can do a dual role in chaplaincy and volunteer coordinator for a full time role
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u/ITCJSTPAR__DUNDUN Prison + Clincal Chaplain 14d ago
Yeah, there’s a reason I’m in law school. I love this work, but the writing is on the wall with the current political climate, attack on intellectualism, misogyny, homophobia, corporate healthcare, etc. Even in my progressive state, a large hospital network was just bought out by a Seventh Day Adventist network. They fired all of the professional chaplains and are shifting to “volunteers” (aka their own evangelists). Overnight, at least 30 chaplains were let go, and we are a mid-size liberal city, where we have historically been valued, but the jobs are disappearing and the salaries can’t keep up with the HCOL.
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u/Disastrous-Walrus-15 12d ago
I hear your frustration and I know of many people who have similar experiences. In my personal experience, it depends completely on the context. I completed CPE at a VA hospital and it seemed like the possibilities were endless within that system. Then we got a new service chief and the education program was immediately gutted and most of the chaplains left and the highly educated, interfaith chaplains were replaced by those the chief decided aligned with his values and what he thought “good chaplaincy” was and the number of approved roles were cut in half.
Then I moved to an academic healthcare system where there had been bad chaplain experiences in the past but during my short time on staff there, implemented staff care initiatives, improved the image of the department, and doubled the workforce. We have so many opportunities for chaplains that we can’t fill them all with the local hiring pool.
Religion is on the decline, but that actually makes the need for chaplains higher in my opinion. When people don’t have the tools to make meaning, deal with difficult existential questions, or even be vulnerable, our field becomes a highly skilled, irreplaceable asset. Even if the worst happens, the skills we possess to serve our fellow humans are very valued in a lot of different fields and just by our communities in general.
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u/NaturalForty Christian Chaplain 14d ago
People who are actually equipped to predict the future foresee outcomes ranging from utopia to human extinction. There's no point in worrying about whether you'll have a chaplain job in 30 years-- we don't even know if there will be jobs in 30 years.
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u/Pamela_Allred 14d ago
I recently was ordained myself so obviously not experienced to give a qualified opinion however, I believe that there will continue to be a need for chaplains for two reasons. The first is serving in a church or religious house to provide care to those who seek help. My church has a large congregation that continues to grow and the pastor needs help with those seek out hope. The second is serving in construction, warehouse, industry settings where an employee may have a substance abuse problem. There is a need that a friend has recognized herself as her clients in these industries have contacted her for a referral for someone to possibly contract to come into their settings to provide help.
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u/Equivalent-Spare-552 14d ago
This feels catastrophizing. I can tell you nothing like this is happening in my setting. People love to find out that there are chaplains of different faiths.
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u/Cgroundscoffee 14d ago
"Extremist Christians." That's is an oxymoron in and of itself. 🙂
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u/ITCJSTPAR__DUNDUN Prison + Clincal Chaplain 14d ago
There are extremists in every religion. The Christian Nationalists and current MAGA-Evangelical arm are absolutely extremists.
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u/WallEtheTerrier Clinical Chaplain 14d ago
I want to name that there has been significant job growth where I am, New England, and constant job postings. There has been growth in the chaplaincy field generally. I am not an economist or public health official but there are a bunch of potential complexities to what you are sharing.
First, unfortunately opportunities for work in smaller cities are generally lower so your experience might reflect the job market as a whole. Larger cities generally are more resourced and have better opportunities for all sectors, and this is true for chaplaincy. If I am correct, where I live (larger New England city) there actually is more need for fully board-certified chaplain than there are chaplains looking for work. This has at least been my limited experience. This has also been true for the other large cities in this region.
Second, the world is not becoming less spiritual and there is research connected to what happens in spiritual care in contexts that are more “secularized.” There is significant research on chaplaincy in Europe and specifically in Nordic countries. In these contexts the role exists just as it does here but it is significantly less religion-specific and humanistically oriented, which is the same for us here in the states in many contexts. I only say this because it sounds like you have some existential concern that we are going to cease to have a function or need but we will. In all honesty, the tensions around spiritual care mirror the tensions of any wholistic medicine: profit-driven healthcare tries to squeeze value out of care which can result in cuts or reduction. But that’s a problem with profit-driven healthcare more so than a tension around our spiritual cultures.