Chaplain Toolkit
The season is over. Before you start the next one, do the accounting.
Not the programming review. Not the evaluation that goes to the athletic director. The honest internal accounting: what the season required of you, what it gave you, where you were effective and where you were not, and whether the calling that brought you into this role is still what is keeping you in it.
Read this passage slowly.
Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.
Lamentations 3:40 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Let us examine our ways and test them. The instruction from Lamentations is not a one-time response to crisis. It is a practice — the deliberate examination of how we have been living and whether it is aligned with what we intend. For the chaplain, the annual inventory is that practice applied to the vocation.
The inventory has five components. First, the effectiveness question: where did the chaplaincy work this season? Which devotionals landed, which relationships deepened, which moments of genuine pastoral care happened? The honest answer here is not a performance review. It is information for the next season.
Second, the cost question: what did this season take from you? The emotional weight you carried, the difficult situations you were in, the relationships that were draining rather than renewing. What did it cost and how well did you recover?
Third, the growth question: where did you become a better chaplain this season? What did you learn about delivery, about relationships, about pastoral care that you did not know at the start of the year?
Fourth, the calling question: is the reason you came into this role still the reason you are in it? Has the calling drifted into obligation, habit, or institutional momentum? If so, what does that mean?
Fifth, the renewal question: what does the well need before the next season begins? What fills you, and when did you last do it?
Do the inventory. Write it down. The chaplain who examines their ways annually is a more sustainable chaplain than the one who doesn’t.
The chaplain who examines their ways annually is more sustainable than the one who doesn’t. Five questions: where did it work, what did it cost, where did you grow, is the calling still real, what does the well need?
Answer the five inventory questions. Take as long as you need. This is your annual accounting.
This is a long reflection exercise. Allow 30–45 minutes if in a group setting. Provide the five questions in writing.
Examine your ways. Test them. Return to the Lord. Do this every year.
This devotional is most valuable as a formal annual practice rather than an occasional one. Consider scheduling it on the calendar before each new season.
This opens the Chaplain Self-Assessment and Renewal topic. Two additional devotionals in this topic will follow in a later batch.