A Ministry of Presence, Connection & Hope

Sometimes what a person needs most is not someone who can fix what is happening.

They need someone willing to show up.

Chaplaincy is a ministry of presence: compassionate, nonjudgmental spiritual and emotional care offered to people wherever they are. Unlike ministry centered within a congregation, chaplaincy goes beyond church walls—into hospitals, care facilities, community settings, detention centers, and other places where people may be experiencing crisis, isolation, grief, transition, or uncertainty.

My work as a prison chaplain begins with a simple commitment:

To show up. To listen. To stay curious. To honor the dignity of the person in front of me.

Spiritual care does not require someone to belong to a church, hold a particular theology, or even identify as religious. I offer care to people of different faith traditions and to people with no religious tradition at all. Prayer, scripture, ritual, or explicitly spiritual conversation can be part of our time together when desired—but they are never a requirement for receiving care.

Chaplaincy with Incarcerated Youth

A growing focus of my chaplaincy work is accompanying young people who are incarcerated or otherwise involved in the juvenile justice system.

Incarceration creates an extraordinary kind of isolation. A young person is separated not only from their physical community, but often from the relationships, faith communities, mentors, and ordinary experiences of adolescence that help all of us understand who we are becoming.

Behind locked doors, access to almost everything becomes more complicated—including spiritual care, relationships, healing, and belonging.

Chaplaincy offers something remarkably simple in response:

Presence.

I spend time with young people one-on-one: listening, talking, playing cards, laughing, discussing whatever is on their minds, and offering prayer or spiritual conversation when they want it.

These aren't necessarily dramatic encounters. In fact, their ordinariness is part of what makes them important.

For a little while, a young person gets to sit across the table from an adult who isn't evaluating them, investigating them, disciplining them, or deciding what happens next.

They get to simply be a young person.

And someone gets to remember who they are.

Bearing Witness to Who Someone Is Becoming

Every person is more than the worst thing they have ever done.

That does not mean pretending harm hasn't happened. Accountability matters. Repair matters. The experiences of victims and communities matter.

But shame and isolation are not the same things as accountability.

Meaningful change requires relationships in which people can tell the truth about themselves, wrestle with what they have done, imagine something different, and have someone bear witness to the person they are trying to become.

That is one of the roles I believe chaplaincy can play.

When someone is incarcerated, many of the people around them know them primarily through a charge, a case file, a behavior report, or an institutional role. A chaplain has the unusual privilege of knowing a different part of the story.

Who makes them laugh.

What they're afraid of.

Who they miss.

What they regret.

What they hope will happen when they leave.

Who they want to become.

And perhaps most importantly, a chaplain can remember that person with them.

For Faith Communities

I also work with congregations that want to explore what it means to extend ministry beyond their own walls.

I am available for guest preaching and pulpit supply, adult education, workshops, mission moments, retreats, and congregational conversations about chaplaincy, incarceration, restorative justice, family support, belonging, and the role faith communities can play in accompanying people who are too easily forgotten.

Not everyone is called to walk through the doors of a detention facility.

But every faith community can ask:

Who has been separated from our community—and how might we show up for them?

The Heart of the Work

I don't believe chaplaincy begins with having the perfect program.

It begins with relationship.

With learning someone's name.

With listening to their story.

With showing up again after you said you would.

With making room for laughter in places where laughter can be difficult to find.

With reminding someone that whatever has happened in their life, another day still offers the possibility of becoming something more.

Presence is not a small thing.

Sometimes presence is where healing begins.

Sometimes it is where hope begins.

And sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is simply show up—and stay.