The Marsh Institute for Chaplains

Chaplaincy training, endorsement, and practice are too often fragmented, scattered across institutions that work in isolation. The Marsh Institute for Chaplains exists to end that isolation. It operates at a meta-level, integrating the whole ecosystem of chaplaincy: education, practice, endorsement, and research. It is a global coordination and advancement hub, built on one conviction: no chaplain should have to serve alone or unprepared.

I have spent more than thirty years in this work, in patrol cars, in emergency rooms, at disaster sites, and beside first responders on their worst days. What I built along the way, I brought home to the Institute, and it became the Chaplain Resource Network.

That is my legacy, and it is how the Institute now equips the world. And CRN does not equip the Institute alone. It supports CPEI, CCN, and HTF as well, so that all of us support one another.

Four pillars

Everything the Institute does stands on four pillars.

CRN is the Equip pillar

The Chaplain Resource Network is how the Institute equips. CRN builds and delivers the training content, and it does not serve one pillar alone. It provides the resources that Collaborate, Support, Equip, and Advocate all draw from, and it supplies content across the entire federation. One evidence-based library, field-tested and accredited, feeding the whole ecosystem. That is the work I am handing forward: a place any chaplain, anywhere, can reach.

What we believe

We are bound to one another by a covenant, not a contract. A contract binds operations; a covenant binds hearts. That covenant shapes everything we do and how we treat one another.

We hold that the greatest among us is the servant of all, so we lead by serving, never by dictating. We are quick to help and slow to dictate, faithful in confidence and unwearied in support of one another's work. In humility we count others more significant than ourselves. We honor every calling, knowing that no one of us is sufficient alone. And we hold the work with open hands, because the mission belongs to the chaplains we serve and to the God who called them.

How we teach

We teach the way the field actually forms a chaplain. The field comes first: every lesson is built for real moments of care, not abstract theory. Because a chaplain learns by doing, our lessons are built around activities, not lectures. Each lesson is an adaptive-hybrid that meets lay volunteers, practitioners, and supervisors each at their own level. We show, we do not just tell, using real case dramatizations so you can watch care unfold and then step into it yourself. And we build in order: formation first, then competency. Completion earns Continuing Education Units approved and issued by CPEI.

How we build

Every lesson is built to a standard before it is ever published. We start from evidence: current research and clinical practice, cited and grounded. Nothing ships without subject-matter-expert review by chaplains who have carried the pager and stood in the room. The whole library is trauma-informed by design, written to strengthen the helper and never to harm the learner. We use technology to build faster and reach further, but a human always owns the outcome.

Our federation

This is a journey of like-minded people and organizations who, separately, heard the same message. We simply believed it, and we came together as one. The Institute does not stand alone. It is held together by a federation joined in common mission and bound by the Covenant of Service, each of us having answered a different part of the same call.

Each keeps its own calling and its own leadership. Inside the federation we do not compete - we strengthen one another. A gap in one is a call for the others to serve.

No silos. No territories.

Apart, each of us does good work. Together, we become something the field has never had: a single force for chaplaincy. The Institute coordinates. CRN equips. CPEI accredits. CCN gathers. HTF comforts. No silos, no territories - just a covenant to love God and love one another, and one evidence-based library feeding every part of the whole. Everyone contributes, and everyone benefits: each organization supporting the others through its own network, for one lasting purpose - to strengthen the field of professional chaplaincy worldwide. This is chaplain resourcing reimagined, and it is only the beginning.

The people behind the work

(c) 2026 Marsh Institute for Chaplains. Chaplain Resource Network is an initiative of the Marsh Institute for Chaplains. All rights reserved.