Rector’s Reflections
Wednesday 5th June 2024
Chaplaincy in the 21st Century
In yesterday’s reflections, I outlined some of the advantages of the chaplaincy model. Chaplains go to where people are, and share the love of God in ways which are relevant and easy to understand. Their ministry is a real help to people in a wide range of situations – including people who would never dream of going into a church building. But the chaplaincy model is not without its challenges.
To start with, there is an argument that chaplaincy can be a watering-down of Christian ministry. Chaplaincy focuses on pastoral care, and sharing the love of God in practical ways. Of course, such practical Christianity is a wonderful thing, and it helps to make our faith credible to non-believers. But there is more to Christianity than simply sharing God’s love with our neighbours. Shouldn’t we be looking to bring others to faith in Jesus Christ? Shouldn’t we be encouraging others to come to Church, to encounter God through worship, bible-reading and prayer?
Furthermore, chaplaincy tends to focus on the individual. The typical work of a chaplain is based on a one-to-one conversation, or some other form of support given to a particular individual. Chaplains do not tend to see their role in creating a new community, or transforming a community which already exists. Of course, communities are based on individuals, and working with individuals can have a cumulative effect: a series of one-to-one conversations can have the power to change a whole organisation, given time. But chaplaincy tends to focus on human beings as individuals. Yes, we are individuals, but we are also part of larger groups, such as families and communities. And as Christians, we are all part of that diverse body of Christians we know as the Church. Chaplaincy tends to ignore the importance of the wider Church community; it also tends to ignore the deeper structures that affect our lives.
These tendencies within Chaplaincy lead in turn to two particular challenges. The first is that the provision of chaplaincy becomes indistinguishable from the provision of pastoral care and well-being. Many organisations have separate provision for pastoral care. If chaplaincy is basically about providing pastoral care, and the organisation is already doing this, why should it bother with chaplaincy? Doesn’t this make chaplaincy redundant? This is a particularly pertinent question in a school or university setting, especially when education budgets are under so much stress. If the school or university already provides pastoral services, the provision of a Chaplain looks like an irrelevance.
And this leads on the question of how chaplaincy is to be paid for. Most organisations are short of money. Given the fact that resources are tight, why should they be spent on providing chaplaincy services? From a Church point of view, chaplaincy is not intended to lead to new church members, who in turn can be expected to make donations to church funds. From a financial point of view, chaplaincy is at best what supermarkets would call a “loss-leader”. Furthermore, it is hard to quantify the impact of chaplaincy. In the world of Charities, impact is everything. Donors expect to see evidence of the impact of the money spent. This emphasis on showing impact has it is limitations, but at least it encourages focus and accountability. What is the impact of chaplaincy? How can it be measured? It is possible to produce some measures of impact, or at last some data on chaplaincy activity. But what is the impact of all this activity? It is hard to know, and sometimes we will never know. For example, you are in hospital and feeling anxious. A hospital chaplain chats with you and you feel re-assured. This conversation will have an impact on your well-being. But how do we measure the impact? And how do we monetize the impact – in other words, how do we express the value of chaplaincy in money terms? And if it can’t be measured in monetary terms, is it worth anything at all?
So we have seen that while the chaplaincy model has many strength, it is not without its challenges. Some would say that it is not sufficiently evangelistic. Others might argue that it is too individualistic in its approach: it fails to recognise the importance of communities as a whole, and the extent to which the issues we face as individuals are reflections of the wider systems and contexts in which we live our lives. And some would argue that it doesn’t match the economic realities of the modern world: it’s lovely to have lots of pastoral conversations, but where are the measurable outcomes? No one is going to pay for pastoral fluff, however well meant.
Having set out some of the pros and cons, where might we go from here? What might we say about the role of chaplaincy in the 21st Century? We shall explore this question further in the days ahead.