The Long Post, Part 7, Job Plans (part 2)

It is going to take a lot to get there.  What is going to take is where I am having my dilemma.  It is my aspiration that once I have completed my MDiv that I will go back into the US Army as a Chaplin, eventually leading to retirement.  I feel compelled to finish my time in the military, as many of the things that I have been through our men and women in service have a much higher potential to have to face.  It means so much more to have someone helping you that you KNOW has been through it.  Though it may not be EXACTLY the same situation, it is close enough that there is a bridge.  With all that I have been through, the things that I have seen, my many journey’s into the depths of hell and back, I have been geared in a unique and real way to be able to understand the crises that people are going through from time to time.  Now, almost all of this experience has been painful, real, staggering, foundationally shaking and my own.

The role that I would also like to take, after my service is complete, is that of a Crisis Pastor.  .  The way that I view things is that there are two ways that people deal with a crisis (loss of a loved one, divorce, abuse, etc) in the church that requires church leadership to step in.  There are the Crisis Counselor’s and then there is the Pastor, Minister, Priest, Associate Pastor, Etc.  Both of these parts do excellent jobs in what they are set out to do.  But what EXACTLY is it that I would do, what would it look like (my wife uses this phase all the time… Oh how I loathe it… and now use it… oh disdain)?

Therein lies the rub, and is the perfect bridge for the dilemma that I am working through, and being consumed by. Yet, we have some more to cover before we can soak in this dilemma.