Subscribe to CRN blog updates
Choose the audiences you want to hear from. Select All for every audience, or select one or more individual audiences.
(c) 2026 Marsh Institute for Chaplains. Chaplain Resource Network is an initiative of the Marsh Institute for Chaplains. All rights reserved.
A referral path should answer a simple question before anyone needs it: When a person asks for help, who makes the next connection, and how does that connection protect the person's trust? Partner agencies often have strong people and useful resources, yet employees may still meet a maze of phone nu...
Spiritual assessment begins before a chaplain asks the first question. It begins with a decision: will I meet this person as a mystery to receive, or as a problem to classify? The difference shapes every word that follows. A hurried chaplain can mistake familiarity for understanding. A faithful chap...
Good chaplain supervision does not begin with an answer. It begins with attention. A caregiver brings a visit, a hesitation, a moment of connection, or a question that still feels unfinished. The supervisor receives that account without rushing to interpret it. Together, they slow the experience dow...
A hospital chaplain learns that a family needs support after discharge. A public safety chaplain knows a trusted community caregiver near the family's home. A military chaplain understands a transition resource that neither of them has used. Each chaplain holds only part of what the family may need....
A field guide for chaplains who want their charting to serve the person, not just the file.
You sat with a man in the ICU for forty minutes. He talked about his daughter, the one he has not spoken to in nine years. He cried once. Then he asked you to pray, and changed his mind. Now you are back at ...
The call you will remember is not the one you were called for. It is the shift you spent riding along when nothing happened. Public safety chaplaincy is built in those ordinary hours, long before the radio goes quiet and every head turns to you. Trust is not issued with a badge or a chaplain's colla...
A chaplain rarely carries tools. You walk into a hospital room, a squad bay, or a shelter with almost nothing but your attention and your words. That can feel thin next to a clinician's protocols. The research says otherwise. The chaplain's instrument is listening, and listening is trainable. Studie...
Every chaplain supervisor watches the same reflex appear in new trainees. A patient starts to cry, a widow goes quiet, a young officer stares at the floor, and the chaplain in training reaches for words. The instinct is kind. It is also the first thing a supervisor has to slow down. Presence is not ...
Most chaplains learn early that the work is quiet, and often lonely. You sit with a family in the worst hour of their lives. You stand in a hallway after a line-of-duty death. You carry stories no one else in the room can carry. Then you go home and hold it alone. The lone-chaplain model asks one pe...
Military chaplaincy does not happen in a single moment. It runs on a cycle. Long before the plane leaves and long after it returns, service members and their families move through a predictable arc: the buildup before deployment, the separation, the reunion, and the slow work of reintegration. A cha...
Chaplains spend their days holding other people's worst moments. You sit with the family in the emergency room. You stand at the fireground while the crew works. You carry the pager that pulls you out of bed at 3 a.m. and back into someone else's grief. The work is a gift. It is also a load, and the...
