Chaplain Toolkit
You chose a role that most people don’t fully understand.
You’re not a coach. You’re not a counselor. You’re not a pastor in the traditional sense, though you may be all of those things in different settings. You’re a chaplain. And the specific contours of that calling deserve honest examination.
Read this passage slowly.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
Isaiah 61:1 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
To bind up the brokenhearted. To proclaim freedom. To release from darkness. These are the job descriptions of the chaplaincy applied to an athletic context. The locker room has all of these needs. The brokenhearted athlete who has lost more than just a game. The one who is captive to anxiety or comparison or an identity built on performance that is collapsing. The one in the darkness of depression or isolation or a faith that has gone cold.
The chaplain’s role is to be present in those places. Not to fix them — to show up in them. To be the person the athlete encounters in the hard moment who doesn’t flinch, who doesn’t perform comfort, who simply stays and brings the presence of something larger than the situation.
This role costs something. The emotional weight of other people’s crises. The invisibility of work whose outcomes are rarely visible. The boundaries of what the chaplain can and cannot do in an institutional setting. The specific loneliness of being the person who holds space for others without always having someone who holds space for them.
You were called to this. The anointing described in Isaiah is for exactly what you are doing. Don’t minimize the weight of it. Don’t underestimate the significance of it. Be in it fully, with full awareness of what it asks.
The chaplain’s role is to show up in the hard places and not flinch. Not to fix — to be present with what is larger than the situation.
What’s the hardest part of this role for you right now — not the challenges of the athletes, but the challenges of being the chaplain?
This question is for the chaplain’s own care. Create genuine space for honest reflection.
You were called to this. Be in it fully. Don’t minimize the weight or the significance.
This devotional is for the chaplain’s own reflection and renewal. It should be part of an ongoing practice of personal care for the people who hold spiritual care for others.