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By Lloyd Mackey
EVERY week, employees in a number of Alberta and B.C.
companies receive a brief visit from a ‘company chaplain.’
These visits are part of a Christian-based service
called Corporate Chaplains (CC), well-known in the United States and now
getting a foothold in Canada.
Bruce Mitchell is the director of CC, a ministry of
Outreach Canada (OC). His main task, since 2004, has been to respond to the
interest of some corporate leaders, in serving their employees spiritually.
To that end, he:
• Recruits people who might make good corporate
chaplains;
• Provides training which enhances whatever
previous education and life experience they might have;
• Links them with companies prepared to pay them
to come alongside their employees in the workplace.
Mitchell draws recruits from a range of fields:
teachers, counsellors and clergy are possible candidates. Mitchell himself
was a teacher for some 30 years, in Ontario and Africa; he has a
counselling degree from Providence College in Manitoba.
Outreach Canada is a multi-faceted ministry committed
to “empowering, equipping and extending” the life and work of
the church.
For Mitchell, OC’s vision and his own goal
– to “empower the church to reach beyond its walls”
– were a fair match.
Based in Calgary, Mitchell began to identify
interested firms. “There were companies in the flooring industry,
glass firms, pizza outlets, and oil and gas companies.”
For the chaplains, those brief weekly visits are
intended as confidence builders – opportunities to learn where the
employees might benefit from the chaplain’s services.
Mitchell chooses the term “life coaching”
to describe the empowering process he hopes chaplains and employees
experience.
Employees are well aware that the chaplains fulfill
their roles “in Jesus’ name.”
But there are practical limiting aspects which the
chaplains learn, in knowing where to draw the line. For example, a chaplain
encountering a non-Christian may refer that person to an imam, rabbi or
other spiritual guide.
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Mitchell notes the range of seemingly non-spiritual
concerns a chaplain might hear about, such as: “My kid is on crack;
my daughter is pregnant; or my marriage is in trouble.”
Good listening becomes important, in unpacking those
concerns.
CC’s chaplains are mostly in their 40s. The
youngest currently working in the field is 31. But the role is suitable for
people who are retired or semi-retired as well.
The orientation provided by Corporate Chaplains
operates on two levels; helping the chaplain to know the boundaries within
which he or she is working, and providing group programs which assist
employers in empowering or encouraging staff members.
What kind of programs? Mitchell cites: “Eating
healthy on a budget, suicide risk analysis, effective hiring and stress
reduction – and it means we bring a fair number of resource people to
our team, at times.”
Presently there are eight CC chaplains, in Calgary,
Vancouver and B.C.’s Fraser Valley. That total may grow to a dozen by
fall.
And the next frontier appears to be Ottawa, where
Alison Johnson is the regional director.
Johnson was a long time management consultant who, in
recent years, has worked on a variety of projects with Outreach Canada.
Mitchell sees community in a lot of what the chaplains
do.
“God, as a trinity, is living in
community,” he says, suggesting that insight helps the chaplain to
understand spirituality and faith in a community context.
Contact: www.chaplains.ca.
Summer/Fall 2008
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