Like Johnson, Simonson said the real number of ELCA chaplains is much bigger. She urges those with- out certification or endorsement to take the additional step so they can be counted and the ministry grown. “This is a significant way in which the church can bring the love of God into the lives of people who would never enter a church,” Simonson said.
Ministry of listening As with Meeker, the common thread for chaplaincy is listening. Since 1991, ELCA pastor Oliver Brown has been the federally funded chaplain inside the Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution, a medium- security prison of about 1,300 men in Minersville, Pa. An inmate’s grandmother is in the hospital with a bad heart that threat- ens to take her at any moment. So the pastor lets him use his monitored phone to connect with her, probably for the last time. The brief exchange of words is insufficient. The prisoner pours out his regret to Brown. It’s a common theme: a family is in crisis and the inmate is absent. “There’s lots of that—‘I wasn’t there for them,’ ” Brown said. “Basi- cally, you don’t have to say a whole lot, but do have to listen.” As an ELCA campus pastor at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, Amy Zalk Larson listens to students who have their entire lives in front of them. But with a backdrop of war, a faltering economy and global warm- ing, they tell her the future some- times looks dim. “We’ve really noticed a height- ened level of anxiety among the stu- dents,” Larson said. “It gets heavy.” So Larson and the other campus
Paul Meeker is an ELCA pastor and police chaplain in Bremerton, Wash. He is one of about 20,000 chaplains in the U.S.
June 2012 33
pastors at Luther hold small-group conversations with the students “to be a compassionate presence,” she said.
Riding along
Meeker rides along regularly with police officers. Dressed in a uniform with a bullet-proof vest, clerical col- lar and prominent cross on his sleeve, he usually goes out at night when the action is at its peak.
One night they got a call-out.
Officers in another county were in pursuit of a driver fleeing at break- neck speeds. Meeker and the officer were ordered to pick up the chase at the county line.
Adrenaline rushed through Meeker as they chased after the driver, who began weaving through crowded city streets where men, women and children were walking. Meeker prayed for their safety. The driver crashed his car in front of Meeker’s church. The man jumped out and fled on foot, but the chase was over. Meeker shuddered
and took a breath.
The years have left their mark on Meeker. In one experience, the chaplain and an officer were sent to the scene after a parent ran over and killed his toddler while backing out of the driveway. “It affected me person- ally. Why does God allow children to die, to suffer unnecessarily? I will take that question to the grave and to heaven,” he said. With prisoners, Brown said
he’s never given up on the hope of “temporal transformation,” adding, “More than 20 years of chaplaincy hasn’t erased my belief in human growth and change.” For Larson it’s about helping replace students’ doubts about the future with confidence. “It’s a really wonderful place to do ministry, to have access to young adults and to be with them in this formative time.” Meeker sums up the chaplaincy experience by saying: “You never know when your witness might plant a seed for faith.”
COURTESY PAUL MEEKER
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