How to Become a Chaplain

A career as a chaplain is a calling, an opportunity to learn and practice ministry rooted in spiritual care, pastoral counseling, accompaniment, and holistic service. To become a chaplain you’ll need more than a desire to serve: you will need a specific combination of theological education, spiritual formation, and practical training.

In this blog post, we’ll show you how to become a chaplain – the educational and certification requirements, what spiritual formation means, and then show you how United Theological Seminary can provide you with the tools you need to reach your goal!

Understanding the Role of a Chaplain

The chaplain offers spiritual care and pastoral counseling to individuals in a variety of settings, including hospitals, military units, schools, prisons, and even large corporations. While spiritual care is the core of what the chaplain does, the chaplain may also function as a counselor, a confidant, and a source of moral support for those experiencing life’s most difficult moments. The chaplain offers support by sitting with individuals in their time of greatest need – regardless of the spiritual and religious backgrounds of those served.

In hospitals, they offer prayer and counseling to patients who are terminally ill. In the military, they might work alongside soldiers in high-stress environments, providing chaplaincy support and often counseling about trauma or bereavement. In the workplace, they can help employees cultivate a sense of meaning and fulfillment. Chaplains are ministers of hope and peace, champions of understanding and growth.

The Significance of Chaplaincy in Modern Society

As the world continues to secularize and diversify, chaplains become increasingly necessary to meet the needs of people of all faiths and beliefs. Even as some societal values shift and some religious institutions wane, people continue to seek spirituality, to feel connected and supported emotionally, and to find meaning, especially in major life moments. 

-The chaplaincy creates a space for people to grieve, to celebrate, and to have hope in times of crisis, even in the absence of a religious tradition, and especially in the absence of traditional religious language. As such, the chaplain is able to enter a person’s space while working at the margins, and by virtue of attending to a person in this way, as they are, can provide much-needed care when it’s needed the most.

A Bridge Between Spirituality and Everyday Life

Spiritual health is often just as important to people as physical or emotional health, and this is another way that chaplains can help. Whether someone is confronting an unimaginable loss, terrified by a terminal disease, or contending with the horrors of a war zone, chaplains can help them find peace, purpose and perspective. Chaplains are not just priests or ministers or rabbis. They are professional listeners, calm voices of moral reason, and advocates for people who might otherwise feel alone and cut off from the world. In an age where it is difficult for many people to find spiritual direction amid the rhythms of modern life, chaplains can help them to reflect, be guided, and be healed.

The Role of Chaplains in a Secular Society

Although chaplaincy had its origins in the Church – and, indeed, many chaplains are employed by churches, synagogues, temples or mosques – in response to the growing secularization of society, chaplains have gone out into the world to provide spiritual care in increasingly non-religious settings. Far from relying on a single religious community, the chaplain’s primary job is to provide spiritual care that transcends specific religious traditions. This makes chaplains a crucial resource in pluralistic societies.

Hospitals

In a hospital setting, chaplains support patients, but also medical staff and families, through prayer and conversation, presence at the bedside and beyond, and providing a much-needed outlet for emotion and spirituality. In a school or university setting, chaplains help students with the stresses of academic life, identity formation and moral challenges.

By offering support for the emotional and spiritual dimensions of our lives, chaplains can help to provide the more holistic form of care that we all need to flourish, but that is so rarely admitted into our healthcare, educational and other social services today. Human beings have a profound need for connection, for a sense of meaning and purpose, and for hope and chaplains can help them find it.

Corporate

Within the corporate realm, chaplaincy is increasingly in demand, too, as workplaces begin to offer more employee wellness and mental health services by hiring chaplains into settings where workers might be experiencing burnout, stress or ethical conflicts. By listening and offering spiritual guidance, chaplains can help employees feel more balanced and fulfilled in their work, as well as create a more caring atmosphere in the workplace.

Chaplains are especially needed in the face of adversity. They are often at the forefront of helping with personal tragedies, national crises or large-scale disasters when people are at their most vulnerable. Their training prepares them to deal with grief, trauma and loss in a caring way. 

Chaplains can help communities open up about how they’re feeling, and facilitate grief, faith and hope long after the immediate crisis. They can also instill a sense of purpose, particularly for those who feel disconnected and isolated in devastating situations.

Chaplains are a key ingredient in helping a pluralistic society find a way to meet the spiritual needs of all its people. They are trained to provide care that is ecumenical, nonsectarian and sensitive to the faith perspectives of the people they serve. Chaplains are trained to be equally comfortable with a person who is Christian, Muslim, Jewish, spiritual, or not religious. 

This diversity is reflected in the many ways that chaplaincy is practiced and spiritual formation for chaplains. Hospital chaplains might be asked to visit a Muslim patient one minute, and preside over the prayers of a Christian family the next. Campus chaplains might counsel students on questions of faith and identity in an academic environment that is often secular and depoliticized. Prison chaplains might provide inmates with the opportunity for spiritual reflection, moral guidance and redemption irrespective of faith or criminal past.

Embracing the pluralism of the modern world, chaplains can be a source of interfaith dialogue and understanding. They can help break down barriers between communities and help to create an atmosphere of mutual respect, which, in turn, results in social harmony. In this way, chaplains offer spiritual care to people as individuals and to communities as a whole.

Educational and Certification Requirements

In order to be a chaplain, you need to learn which is why there are chaplaincy training programs. Depending on the particular chaplaincy context, candidates may be required to have a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, and/or post-graduate training. Minimum chaplain education requirements for most chaplaincy positions is an undergraduate degree (usually a Bachelor’s degree) followed by graduate theological education. For many, this begins with a Bachelor’s degree in Theology, Studies in Religion, or a related discipline. Such a degree provides familiarity with the major religious and ethical systems of the world. This is followed by some type of Master of Divinity (M Div) or equivalent degree.

The Master of Divinity, which is the de facto standard for chaplaincy positions, provides a broad foundation in theology, pastoral care, ethics and ministry leadership. Curricula typically include extensive field education, in which students gain experience in local hospitals, churches and not-for-profits.

Certification and Credentials

In addition to a graduate degree, professional certification is typically required of chaplains. Board Certified Chaplain (BCC) is a ‘seal of approval’ from professional organizations (such as the Association of Professional Chaplains [APC]) that can be applied in a variety of chaplaincy settings. Requirements to become board certified include:

• A graduate theological degree (typically an M.Div. or equivalent)
• Completion of at least four units of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) – an experiential training program for developing pastoral care skills.
• Endorsement from a recognized faith group or denomination
• Experience in providing spiritual care in a specific setting

Spiritual Formation and Practical Application

Becoming a chaplain is more than an academic exercise. It’s also a spiritual one. Spiritual formation describes the ongoing process of growth in your relationship with God, your faith shaping your heart, mind and leadership. As a chaplain leading others spiritually, you will want to have your own spiritual life in order. At United Theological Seminary chaplaincy, the spiritual formation practices – prayer, reflection and community – are part of the foundational academic experience. 

The school has partnerships with hospitals and with the military chaplaincy program, so students can shadow current chaplains and gain experience in real-world chaplaincy settings. These practices give future chaplains hands-on experience as they prepare to enter the ministry field, ready to serve a diverse population with compassion and care.

The United Theological Seminary Advantage

United Theological Seminary has a rich history of preparing chaplains, theological education for ministry in the world has led to the development of contextualized programs, including postgraduate degrees for people entering chaplaincy ministry. These programs emphasize the integration of spiritual formation, theological formation and missional formation to prepare people for ministry.

The emphasis on spiritual formation at United (as opposed to the more clinical emphasis found at many other seminaries) makes it especially relevant for those seeking to be chaplains. The seminary strives for its students to be as well-rounded in their faith as they are in their academic work. This is one of the many reasons that chaplains from United are well-suited to caring for the people for whom they’ll eventually find themselves responsible.

Today, graduates of United Theological Seminary are active in their communities as effective chaplains in healthcare, military and educational environments such as high schools and hospitals. They are living examples that spiritual formation combined with academic excellence is a profound blessing on their lives and ministries.

Embracing the Transformative Power of Chaplaincy in Today’s World

The path to becoming a chaplain is a profoundly rewarding one, calling for serious study, training and spiritual formation, as well as spiritual discernment. If you are thinking about becoming a chaplain, know that good chaplaincy is rooted in strong theological education and a deep and vibrant commitment to serving others and to building a relationship with God.

If you have a call to chaplaincy, and want the tools, community and spiritual support to be an effective and compassionate chaplain, United Theological Seminary is here to help you take that next step. Explore our chaplaincy programs and request more information to get started.