Chaplain Toolkit
At some point in your chaplaincy, something genuinely terrible is going to happen.
Not a hard loss. Not a difficult team dynamic. Something that requires you to show up as a pastoral presence in an acute crisis — a death, a serious injury, a mental health emergency, a tragedy in the community. You don’t know when it will come. You do know it is coming. And the chaplain who has prepared before the moment is different in that moment than the one who hasn’t.
Read this passage slowly.
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.
Proverbs 22:3 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
The prudent see danger and take refuge. The preparation is the refuge. Not shelter from the crisis — the crisis will arrive regardless. The preparation is what allows the chaplain to enter the crisis with capacity rather than being overwhelmed by it at the same moment they are being called to hold the room.
Pre-season crisis preparation looks like specific, practical things. Know the phone numbers. Your institution’s mental health emergency line. The campus crisis counselor. The hospital chaplain. The on-call athletic trainer. The head of athletics. The person in the athletic department whose job it is to coordinate a crisis response. Know these numbers before you need them, because the moment you need them is not the moment you want to be searching for them.
Know the protocols. What is the mandatory reporting threshold in your institution? What are you required to report and to whom? What happens after you report it? The chaplain who does not know their mandatory reporting obligations before a disclosure arrives is in a genuinely dangerous position — legally, ethically, and in terms of the care they can provide.
Know your own limits. What pastoral care situations are beyond your training and require immediate referral? Where does spiritual care end and clinical care begin? The chaplain who knows these boundaries in advance navigates them better in the moment than the one who discovers them under pressure.
Prepare now. The crisis you are hoping never comes will be better served by the chaplain who was ready for it.
Know the numbers before you need them. Know the protocols before the disclosure arrives. Know your limits before you are tested by them. The prepared chaplain holds the room better.
Do you have the crisis contact numbers for your program memorized or immediately accessible? Do you know your mandatory reporting obligations and thresholds? If not, when will you find out?
These are practical readiness questions with specific, actionable answers. The goal is an action item, not a reflection.
Prepare now. The crisis will be better served by the chaplain who was ready.
Best delivered before the season begins as part of chaplain onboarding or annual preparation. The action items should be completed within the week.