Additional ways to learn more about the Army chaplaincy and the chaplain candidate program:

Seek out chaplain candidates in your seminary. They can relate their own experiences firsthand. They may be able to help you with paperwork or with contacting the chaplain recruiter. They can tell you what the Chaplain Officer Basic Course (CHOBC) is like. They can tell you where a quality chaplain candidate practicum can be experienced.

Seek out chaplains and chaplain candidates in your denomination; talk to your denomination’s ecclesiastical endorser. Do you attend a diocesan, district, or national council or convention? While you’re there, ask around for military chaplains. It’s possible that chaplains may come dressed in uniform. Ask around for your denomination’s endorser; he can connect you with chaplains. Chaplains can tell you what it’s like at their current duty station or what it was like at their last one. Do you want to know how chaplains minister in Korea? One of your denomination’s chaplains can probably tell you. It’s important that you talk to your denomination’s endorser to find out the special requirements you must fulfill to be endorsed by your church for military ministry; these vary by denomination and are in addition to what the Department of Defense requires.

Visit the nearest Army installation. Call up the installation and ask to be directed to the staff chaplain’s office. When connected, ask to speak to the training chaplain; if there’s no one specifically designated as the training chaplain, ask for the deputy staff chaplain; failing all else, ask for the NCOIC (the Noncommissioned Officer In Charge, who is a chaplain assistant). Tell the chaplain or chaplain assistant that you’re interested in the Army chaplaincy and that you’d like to talk with a local chaplain about military ministry. Believe me: they will jump at the chance! The Chaplain Corps currently has a recruiting program called “Finders Keepers; under this program, any installation that successfully recruits a chaplain is able to have that chaplain assigned to that installation for his initial assignment.

Read the literature. I’ve already mentioned the chaplain recruiting website and requesting an information packet. It’s essential that you read the literature if you really want to understand what the candidate program is about. The brochure will list the exact requirements you need to serve as a chaplain candidate or as a chaplain. Yes, there are steps to complete for each of these individual requirements–and a lot of paperwork to fill out–but the brochure gives a good summary.

Some of these suggestions may seem simple–and they are. Hopefully they are helpful for the beginner who has some interest, however faint, in the Army chaplaincy. When I first began to develop an interest in military chaplaincy, I didn’t know where to seek more information. I saw a couple of chaplaincy websites (Navy and Army, if I remember correctly) but that was it. I called up the general recruiting toll free numbers for the Army and Navy and gave my address for an information packet. The packets came and my knowledge increased a bit.

I called the local Army recruiter and asked about chaplaincy; he told me that I should become a chaplain assistant. Thankfully, I had gleaned enough information from the literature to know better. I was a little intimidated by the requirements for regular Army chaplaincy; so, thinking that the National Guard might have less stringent standards, I made an appointment to talk with an Alabama Guard recruiter. The appointment went fine but the recruiter wanted me to enlist, go through AIT (Advanced Individual Training), then go through OCS (Officer Candidate School). Again, I had picked up enough from the literature and websites to know better. I later learned that National Guard requirements for chaplaincy are the same as regular Army and Army Reserve requirements (and that the same Chief of Chaplains oversees them all).

So, the moral of the story is that you should avail yourself of all the information you can lay your hands on. If you wish, you can always contact me and I’ll help as much as possible.

You’ve decided you’re interested in the challenges and opportunities of ministry as an Army chaplain. How do you learn more about it?

The first thing I recommend you do when considering the Army chaplaincy is to read a little about the requirements for appointment as a chaplain and about the ministry of the chaplaincy. You can read this on the Army recruiting website, in the chaplain recruiting area. From this section, you can request a packet of information to be mailed to you, locate the nearest chaplain recruiter, or chat with an Army recruiter (who will probably not be able to answer questions specifically related to the Chaplain Corps).

Go ahead and request an information packet. When you receive this, included will probably be a business card for your nearest chaplain recruiter. The country is divided into six recruiting brigades, with chaplain recruiters in Maryland, Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Nevada, and Kentucky. If you didn’t receive contact information for your regional chaplain recruiter, call 866-684-1571 and follow the prompts to be connected.

Chaplain recruiters are chaplains. They have all been through the accessions process and probably even served as chaplain candidates. They are familiar with the special requirements for military ministry. I don’t recommend contacting a local Army recruiter (i.e., one who is not a chaplain recruiter) for information on the chaplaincy. If you do speak to a general recruiter, do NOT take his advice if he suggests that you become a chaplain assistant to “get your foot in the door”. If you meet the requirements for chaplaincy (now or in the future), you will already have your foot in the door; if you do not meet the requirements for chaplaincy, you will never be a chaplain, no matter what else you have been. Chaplain assistants are enlisted personnel; chaplains are officers. I’ll write more about chaplain assistants later.

Chaplain recruiters are different from general recruiters in other ways, too. For example, they probably won’t come to your home for a recruiting presentation or call you every other day for six months. If you’re in seminary, a chaplain recruiter may visit your school once or twice a year to meet students, set up a display, or visit with chaplain candidates. If you speak to a chaplain recruiter at one of these visits, he will not pressure you to join but he will provide helpful information and may schedule individual time to talk with you, if you request. He may give you a brochure or recommend that you speak with a fellow student who is already in the chaplain candidate program.

In my experience, dealing with three chaplain recruiters myself and hearing the experiences of others, chaplain recruiters will not hound you to do anything. In fact, if you are interested in becoming a chaplain candidate, they will expect you to take the initiative and get things done (such as completing paperwork). They will provide you with the information and forms you need–and will even give you guidance in filling out forms–but they will not call you every day just to make sure you haven’t changed your mind. Nor will they check up on you every week to make sure you are staying on track toward fulfilling the requirements for acceptance into the chaplain candidate program or for accessions.

I’ll continue this subject in Part 2.

Technorati Tags : army, chaplain, candidate, recruiting

If you have an interest in serving God and our country as an Army chaplain, here are some pointers for beginning your journey to soldier ministry. These suggestions are based on my own experience and knowledge and do not necessarily reflect official Army doctrine or policy.

Chaplaincy qualifications

To serve as a chaplain, you must fulfill these basic requirements:

1. Be ordained.
2. Receive an ecclesiastical endorsement for chaplaincy from your denomination or endorsing organization.
3. Have a bachelor degree of at least 120 semester hours from an accredited school.
4. Have a Master of Divinity from an accredited school (or a graduate degree in theological studies, with at least 72 semester hours).
5. Be able to pass a military entrance physical exam.
6. Be able to receive a Secret security clearance.
7. Have ministry experience.

Chaplain candidate qualifications

If you do not yet meet all the requirements for appointment as a chaplain, you can work on completing them while you train for military ministry by serving in the Army chaplain candidate program.

To serve as a chaplain candidate, you must fulfill these basic requirements:

1. Receive an ecclesiastical approval for the chaplain candidate program from your denomination or organization.
2. Have a bachelor degree of at least 120 semester hours from an accredited school, or be in your last semester of undergraduate studies.
3. Be enrolled in graduate theological studies at an accredited school, or have been accepted for admission to such a program in the next enrollment period of the school, or have completed such a program and be actively engaged in a process leading toward ordination.
4. Be able to pass a military entrance physical exam.

From this point forward, I will focus on information for chaplain candidates, beginning with inquiring about the program to accessioning to active duty. Some of this information may be useful for persons who already have completed seminary and are ordained and, thus, are seeking to be directly accessioned to the Chaplain Corps. Some of it may also be useful for chaplains and chaplain candidates in the Air Force and Navy. However, I am specifically targeting Army chaplain candidates.

Please note that this is an ongoing series of short articles. In order to see the list of articles available to date, you must view this article in its archived format by clicking the title of the article. At the bottom of each article in the series is a list of available articles. You may leave comments or ask questions by filling in the comment box at the bottom of any article or you may contact me directly.

I hope you will find this series helpful.

My time as an Army chaplain candidate has been very enjoyable but, at times, also very frustrating. Unfortunately, there is little guidance for candidates and the frequent turnover in chaplain recruiting and management doesn’t help.

So, to help those who come behind me, I will offer a series of posts with advice for chaplain candidates and potential chaplain candidates. My advice will be based on my own experiences and knowledge and does not necessarily represent official Army doctrine. While the information in this series is specific to the Army chaplain candidate program, Air Force and Navy candidates may also find the information helpful.

If you’re a chaplain, chaplain candidate, or potential candidate, I encourage you to ask questions or make suggestions by filling in the comment box below (if you don’t see it, click the title of this post) or the contact form.