Chaplain Toolkit
The coaching staff has pulled back your access.
Maybe it was explicit: they’ve asked you to stop doing devotionals, or to stop meeting with athletes individually, or to reduce your presence in the program. Maybe it’s been indirect: the invitations have stopped arriving, the door that was open is now closed. Either way, the role you had is smaller than it was, and you have to decide what to do with that.
Read this passage slowly.
“We must obey God rather than human beings!”
Acts 5:29 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
We must obey God rather than human beings. Peter’s declaration is made in the specific context of being commanded to stop preaching the gospel — a situation in which the human authority was requiring something that directly contradicted a divine command. That is a high bar. It is not the bar for most chaplain-coaching staff conflicts.
The chaplain who invokes Acts 5:29 to justify continuing access to a program over the explicit objection of the coaching staff has almost certainly misread the situation. The coaching staff’s decision to restrict access is not, in most cases, a command to stop following Jesus. It is an institutional decision about the program’s use of its time and resources that the chaplain has standing to appeal but not to override.
The right response to restricted access is a direct conversation with the appropriate institutional authority — the coach, the athletic director, whoever made the decision — asking what the specific concern is and whether there is a way to address it. Not a campaign to go around the restriction. Not continued access in defiance of the request. The direct conversation.
If the restriction stands after the conversation and it does not require you to violate a clear ethical or spiritual obligation, accept it gracefully. The athletes you built relationships with still know how to find you. The doors that close officially often remain open relationally. Carry the access you have with the same faithfulness you brought to the access you had.
The right response to restricted access is a direct conversation about the specific concern, not a campaign around the restriction. If it stands, accept it gracefully. The relational door often remains open.
If your access to this program were restricted tomorrow, what relationships would survive the institutional change? Are you building those?
Forward-looking and protective. The relational foundation that survives institutional changes is worth building deliberately.
Have the conversation. Accept the outcome. Carry whatever access you have with faithfulness.
This devotional is for chaplains who have experienced or are experiencing restricted access to a program. It is a personal reflection tool, not for delivery to athletes.