So you started out as a trauma in hospice chaplain, then you became a lead pastor.

So I was thinking to myself, what are the commonalities in those jobs, I wonder, and then what are the differences in those jobs?

Oh, man, I love that question. Yeah, I

I was, I did chaplaincy out of necessity. I was engaged. My fiance had one more year of college

and it, I kind of fell into it. The local teaching hospital did these annual or these one year

chaplain residency programs.

So the way a medical student will do a medical residency, a ministry student can do a chaplain residency.

So I thought, man, why not?

And had no idea it would change my life.

Yeah.

I think what they have in common, I actually now wish that every pastoral staff member was required to do

chaplaincy. Some denominations require it out of their pastors. What it has in common is the way

you have to manage yourself so you can be aware of how you're infecting and changing every room

you walk into. That was true with me

as a lead pastor too. I love being a pastor, but I hate the way I can show up and people act

differently because the pastor's in the room. Yeah. You know, people didn't act differently in chaplaincy,

but I had to learn that my own fear of

death would infect the room if I wasn't aware of it.

If my incessant need to be needed or to say the right thing would get in the way.

So I think that's what it has in common.

The difference is in chaplaincy, it's all visceral.

There's no reports. There's no spreadsheets. There's no board meetings. It's pure ministry. You, suffering people, the Holy Spirit, that's the job. The downside is you don't really have a congregation. 70% of your work is with patients and their families.

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