Supporting People in the town centre

What does a chaplain do ?

  • Go into work-places to support employees at their place of work

  • with the agreement of the employer

  • on a regular basis

  • generally, 2-3 hours a week or a half-day a fortnight

  • generally chatting & being sociable

  • building up relationships

  • being available for 1-1 deeper discussions

  • giving people the opportunity to be real

What is the need ?

  • people cannot be real:

  • we don’t have friends & family relationships like we used to

  • we don’t trust people, we don’t tell them about our real problems, our real concerns, our real needs

  • we go into work mode; family mode; spiritual-mode, mates mode

  • a lot of problems go away (or become manageable) when we talk about them

  • we regain our perspective

  • sometimes professional help is required 

  • a confidential discussion with a chaplain may give the support necessary for the individual to then seek professional help  

 

What are the skills required to be a chaplain ?

  • tact and common sense

  • an appreciation for the constraints of the business

  • you recognise that you are a guest

  • you forgo your agenda and time constraints for theirs

  • when someone is obviously busy that is not the time for a pastoral meeting – a quick Hi! is sufficient

  • an interest in people

  • listening skills

  • we’re giving them the opportunity to talk about what they want to – about what they may need to

 

What different types of chaplain are there ?

There are essentially 3 types of chaplain:

  • chaplains who actually go into an organisation

  • chaplains who meet with people wanting to talk on an ad hoc appointment basis

  • telephone chaplains who are on call (ie man a phone) for a few hours per week to offer personal support on the phone

Also, the types of organisation vary enormously and being a chaplain will be very different if you’re going into a departmental store, an organisation such as the police, or small stores in a shopping centre. However, regardless of the context, chaplaincy is simply about one human-being giving time to listen and be with another human-being.

Why not contact David Morgan – the Town Chaplain – to discuss whether you could help by becoming a volunteer chaplain or in some other way?