Chaplains help people on the 'jagged edge of life'
___By Ken Camp & Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___Chaplains minister to people "on the jagged edge of life," according to Mark Grace, director of pastoral care and counseling at Baylor Health Care System.
___And by offering endorsement for chaplains and other pastoral caregivers, the Baptist General Convention of Texas can help make that kind of ministry possible.
___More than 400 Baptist chaplains serve in Texas. In the Baylor hospital system alone, chaplains minister to 3,500 grieving families per year, Grace said. And that only counts deaths. It doesn't begin to include the counsel chaplains provide to distressed patients, stressed health-care providers and family members wrestling with difficult choices.
___Add to that t
he ministry provided by chaplains in the military, in nursing homes and geriatric centers, in jails and prisons, as well as pastoral counselors in a variety of settings.
___"Our work really puts us in contact with people who are in crisis," said Glenn Shoemake, chaplain for Buckner Elder Care in Dallas. "And being a part of that human pool, we have to learn how to hear their cries and their hurts--and learn not to absorb them for ourselves."
___The BGCT recently responded to recommendations from a nine-member chaplain study group by creating an office of chaplaincy relations and initiating an endorsement process for chaplains and pastoral counselors.
___On Feb. 26, the BGCT Executive Board voted to form a chaplain endorsement board. Bobby Smith, director of chaplaincy relations, has petitioned the United States Armed Forces Chaplains Board to recognize the BGCT as a chaplain-endorsing agency.
___State and federal institutions such as prisons and the military--as well as many hospitals and other entities--require that chaplains be endorsed by their denomination. Once a denominational entity receives Armed Forces approval as an endorsing agency, hospitals and other institutions typically recognize the validity of the endorsement.
___Historically, the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board endorsed most Texas Baptist chaplains.
___The chaplain study committee wanted the BGCT to become the kind of endorsing agency that could create a closer network of mutual support among chaplains than is possible with a large national organization, Smith noted.
___The committee also asked the BGCT to seek approval as an endorsing agency in part because NAMB now requires chaplains to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. The preamble to the new statement of faith calls it an "instrument of doctrinal accountability," and some Texas Baptists have alleged that SBC mission boards and seminaries have used it as a "loyalty oath." Other significant objections have been raised concerning the theological content of the revised faith statement.
___On Feb. 6, NAMB trustees added further restrictions on endorsement by declaring the SBC agency's Chaplains Commission no longer would endorse ordained women.
___One chaplain who could lose NAMB endorsement is Kathy Sapp Ozenberger at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. While she believes she is secure as long as she stays in her current position, as an ordained woman she would not be eligible for NAMB endorsement if she moved to a new post.
___For Ozenberger, a day's work can involve meeting with a hospital ethics committee, praying with patients in an intensive care unit, leading a seminar on death and dying, and providing pastoral counseling to a woman who has learned she cannot bear children.
___Or it can mean spending half the morning on the floor, playing with the child of a health-care provider who just experienced a death in her own family.
___"It's a privilege to be with people in their time of need and to be God's presence to them," she said.
___Prior to becoming a chaplain, Ozenberger worked 10 years for Woman's Missionary Union of Louisiana, writing curriculum and serving as consultant for Mission Friends and Girls in Action.
___"I felt I was doing an effective job of equipping the saints, but I asked God, 'How can I share your love with people who are not Christians?'" she recalled. Ultimately, she discovered her calling in clinical pastoral care.
___Ozenberger expressed deep appreciation for her home church, First Baptist Church of Pineville, La., and for the training she received at a Baptist college and seminary. And she feels sorrow that NAMB no longer offers endorsement to ordained female chaplains like herself.
___"My grief comes from no longer being allowed to give back what has been given to me," she said. "I was nurtured and encouraged to follow God's calling in my life, wherever that led, in precious Southern Baptist churches and schools."
___Ozenberger maintained that she has "unique opportunities to minister" in places where a male chaplain might not be welcome. For instance, she said, "It might be more appropriate for a female chaplain to be present with a female victim of sexual assault."
___She said mothers of newborns--and women who have lost children--often "want another woman who can stand beside them, walk with them and identify with them."
___While Ozenberger expressed deep appreciation to personnel at NAMB who have related to chaplains, she said she looks forward to being part of a "closer regional network of chaplains who can minister to each other."
___Lee Ann Rathbun, clinical pastoral education supervisor and chaplain coordinator for trauma surgery at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, voiced many of the same sentiments.
___Rathbun said she had wrestled with NAMB insistence that chaplains affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. When NAMB trustees ruled that ordained women would not be endorsed, that just "sort of sealed the deal," she said. "I was very saddened by it, but not surprised. I felt it was probably inevitable."
___A female chaplain has an advantage over a male counterpart in some circumstances because many people accept nurture and compassion "more openly from a woman," Rathbun said. And by being God's representative, the chaplain can help a person involved in critical situations find reconciliation with God, she added.
___Her colleague Grace added, "I don't think you can work in this business very long and witness the impact that competent, caring chaplains have on the lives of hurting folks and continue to make distinctions between them based on gender."
___But BGCT endorsement is not just a "women's issue" or even an issue exclusively for pastoral caregivers in institutions that demand endorsement. For county jail chaplains and local church pastoral counselors, endorsement may not be a job requirement.
___However, BGCT endorsement could be a benefit for pastoral caregivers of all kinds because it would offer accountability and camaraderie, according to some veterans in these areas.
___County jail chaplains typically either raise their own support or serve as volunteers, so endorsement, ordination or other formal credentials typically are not required, said Harold Ellis, chaplain for Bell County jails.
___"The inmates I serve couldn't care less if I'm ordained or if I've even seen the inside of a seminary. They just want to know I care," Ellis said.
___But Ellis believes chaplains who offer pastoral care to others genuinely need pastoral care for themselves, as well as the support of peers in ministry. "I believe that need can be met better on the statewide level than on a national basis," he observed.
___Lynn McMasters, minister of counseling at First Baptist Church in Lubbock, noted that churches seldom require any official endorsement for counselors. And for female pastoral counselors, ordination actually can be an obstacle to serving some congregations, she added.
___But she believes the BGCT endorsement process would offer assurance to churches that self-described "pastoral counselors" are operating from a genuinely Christian framework.
___"The screening process involved in endorsement can be good for churches," she said. "There are so many people who say they are doing pastoral counseling just so they can get that (Christian) clientele, but what they offer is no different than what is provided by others who come out of a humanistic perspective."
___Being a part of a statewide network of pastoral-care providers also would offer opportunities for fellowship and professional growth, she added.
___"We don't really have a group," McMasters said. "I don't even know who most of the people are or where they are."
___Buckner's Shoemake maintained it is imperative for caregivers to have someone with whom they can share the pain to which they are exposed daily.
___"After we minister, we have to ventilate to someone else who knows the distress or burden we deal with," he said.
___Grace from Baylor Health Care called the BGCT chaplaincy office an "idea whose time has come ... . It will enable us to do what we do best--minister care and compassion to people in the name of Christ."
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