.Grace Fellowship International now offers an equipping track for Exchanged Life Chaplaincy.

Chaplaincy is essentially a ministry of presence, offering care and support. This no-strings-attached care may lead to discussing one’s personal relationship with God. The most basic spiritual need is to understand the Gospel and receive the gift of God’s salvation through Christ. Similarly, there may be opportunities to go deeper into the basics of how to resolve personal and spiritual conflicts through discipleship counseling. The GFI credential adds Christ-centered discipleship counseling to the chaplain’s tool kit and mission scope.

In his book, Foundations of Chaplaincy: A Practical Guide, Alan Baker
introduces chaplaincy this way:

“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…”

The International Fellowship of Christian Chaplains (IFOC.org) summarizes the role of the chaplain. The chaplain:

• Ministers in areas of critical incident stress, grief and loss, trauma, and stress management
• Provides counsel, education, advocacy, life-improvement skills, and recovery training
• Builds a bridge between the secular and spiritual environments of community life
• Brings life changing service in every sector of community life, such as health and welfare, education, transitional living, emergency service, and governmental support

One of the advantages of this ministry role is the diversity of contexts where ministry can be offered. Christian Chaplains and Coaching gives this list of ministry examples:

• Community Chaplaincy
• Recovery from addictions
• Jail, prison, and those recently released or on parole
• Disabled and special needs
• Troubled teens
• Sex trafficking victims
• Hospital
• Nursing home/assisted living
• English as a second language
• PTSD
• Emergency, crisis, and critical incidents
• Marriage and family care
• Military and veterans
• Police and fire
• Urban ministry
• Office and workplace environment
• Motorcycle ministry
• Hospice Care

See the Exchanged Life Chaplaincy certification track here.

May this new equipping path be used of the Lord to deploy many men and women as ambassadors of God’s love, gospel, and wisdom.