Chaplaincy Studies

Universal Life Church Seminary

Master of Chaplaincy Studies

Rev. Justin Oles

The assignment following this course was to answer the following questions:

1.     What did I learn from this course?

2.     What helped me the most?

3.     What could be improved in this course?

4.     What do we hope to accomplish after taking this course?

I guess the best place to start here is with defining what a chaplain is.  A chaplain is a religious leader frequently working with transient worshipers and usually working in more than one faith.  The transient nature of the flock often leads to a lack of relationships with the individual worshipers and therefore a lack of connection beyond that attributed solely to the shared faith.  Also, due to the transient nature of the worshipers a chaplain in often required to minister to those who follow different beliefs and practices than his or her own.  This in and of itself makes a chaplaincy a difficult experience.  On top of that chaplains frequently work in places where they deal with the extremes of human existence.  By working in places such as air ports, police departments, hospitals, prisons and the military they often have to deal with people grieving from death, killing, sickness and all other forms of human suffering.  Sometimes, although less often, they will have the pleasure of dealing with the more positive aspects of the human condition such as marriages and births.

           

What did I learn from this course?

From taking this course I learned some of the finer points of exactly what a chaplain does or deals with, things I had not thought about before.  I also developed a small kit bag of things to do, know and think about involved in a chaplaincy.  I haven’t taken the time to put together a kit bag of tangible items yet as with my career field and location that is not easy nor feasible.

            There were also some great sections covering some of the many different types of chaplains and some of the specifics of their practices as well as some of the challenges and pitfalls.

What helped me the most?

            The most helpful part for me was the small thoughts and assignments at the conclusion of every discourse.  They helped me to solidify my ideas, find out some of the local laws and regulations and discover more about what a chaplain really does.  The only chaplains I’ve dealt with were military chaplains so this created some new ideas and gave me things to think about as well as new things to study and learn to better myself as a minister.

           

What could be improved in this course?

I think it would have been beneficial to add some more required courses or add sections to the course on counseling, in its many forms.  As stated in several of the discourses, counseling is a major role of the chaplain and while it is good to put it out there as something extra to do separate from the coursework it would also be beneficial to at least provide some guidance on actual counseling in addition to the sections covering active listening that are included in many seminary courses. 

            The section on active listening was beneficial and although covered in a lot of different discourses it is important to understand.  One of the major tenets of active listening is that it is a skill that must always and constantly be focused on, worked through and improved.  One of the most important parts of active listening is to seem involved in the conversation.  Just hearing what someone is saying isn’t enough to have people feel you care.  There are simple things you can do involving just your body language that can make someone believe you really care what they have to say.  The basics of it are to keep eye contact, learn towards the speaker, don’t fiddle with things or dry wash your hands.  If you have trouble or uncomfortable keeping eye contact you can simply look through a person or over that head, it will give the illusion of you looking them in the eye without actually doing it.  Those are not tricks I recommend making a constant use of but for people who have issues with eye contact it can be useful.  Another great trick for active listening is to through in affirmations (yes, yup, I understand, uhuh, etc) during the natural pauses in the conversation.  If something doesn’t make sense ask then what they mean.  If you do understand but something is unclear or you wish to clarify say something along the lines of, “what I hear you saying is…”  These are easy tricks but they can greatly improve the conversation, plus they help to keep you engaged in the conversation and make it harder for you to grow bored or distant.  It is also beneficial to have these conversations one on one.  A word of warning there though, you want to avoid anything that could cause issues socially, publicly or morally.  For example, it would be unwise for and adult male to meet alone with a young woman.  In a case such as this it’s best to meet with the full knowledge of other people, possibly with a female friend (either yours or theirs present), possibly in a public place or at a minimum with the door open.  Remember to always watch out for your own safety, while counseling and meetings may seem best private and fairly safe there can be a danger there.

           

What do I plan on doing following the completion of this course?

Before taking this course I was the chaplain of my motorcycle club chapter.  While the job doesn’t really require much religious work it does involve mediating problems and coordinating for the annual blessing of the bikes and coordinating any funerals and funeral items for the chapter.  After taking the course I feel I have a better understanding of how I could help the club with the various tasks required as part of that.  I also frequently get questions from others about my faith and about religion in general, this course has given me some better ideas of how I might explain things depending on different persons, their beliefs and their personalities.

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The  ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials.  I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary.

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