Since 1985, Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries (ACM) has been the official department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists dedicated to this broad, noble line of ministry. Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is the benchmark training program under ACM’s aegis that has, since its inception in 2013, cultivated an impressive reputation for being a transformative enterprise.

Altogether, CPE is approaching a century of existence. Of course, it formulated within the milieu of other folds of faith, Christian and, over time, otherwise. According to the Adventist Chaplaincy Institute Handbook, “In 1925, Richard C. Cabot [a physician and adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School] wrote an article promoting the use of CPE,” and other distinguished professionals of diverse fields helped forward its development and implementation.

Deena Bartel-Wagner, publications editor and social media manager for ACM, and Ivan Omaña, assistant director of Chaplaincy Ministries for the North American Division and ACM field representative for the West Coast, both graciously offered some of their valuable time to individually interview with ANN. They each provided insightful input regarding CPE and its impact from their respective positions of engagement and association.

 Administrative Perspective

Bartel-Wagner began with a brief, matter-of-fact overview of why the training came to fruition: “[CPE] first began to be used for hospital chaplains in teaching them how to interface with people and not let their own personal issues get in the way of how they were reacting to other people’s grief or traumas.” She expounded upon this moments later.

North America was the springboard for CPE in the Adventist Church and remains the hub, as several training centers are scattered throughout the division and many international trainees will still traverse the seas to attend here. With that said, ACM strives for worldwide growth and presence, and that is trending in the right direction, as centers have already been established in Puerto Rico, Argentina, Nigeria, the Philippines, and, most recently, Haiti. They are typically connected with hospitals. The long-term goal is to establish at least one training center in all 13 divisions.

Bartel-Wagner addressed the need to effect a global dimension that goes beyond facility locations. “Currently, we are providing the basic CPE training in several locations. Before a chaplain can enroll in supervisory training, they must complete four (4) CPE units.We are working towards eventually having in-country trained CPE supervisors. They will know and understand the cultural needs.” She affirmed the overarching principles that shape CPE yet acknowledged the importance of adapting to the culture. “Different cultures grieve differently, and you need to be able to address that in the training of the chaplain.”

It was during the discussion about online training options, which were available before COVID-19, then obviously expanded to facilitate travel restrictions, that Bartel-Wagner unpacked her initial statement on the essential catalyst for CPE. “Many times, when a pastor or a chaplain begins working in chaplaincy or in ministry, they bring a lot of their own personal baggage with them when they go into a visit.” She supplied a general example of how a chaplain’s healthy or unhealthy processing of personal tragedy spills over into his or her reaction to people experiencing similar tragedies, then concluded, “that’s what CPE does: it helps people come into a situation and know how to minister to the person they are working with.”

Bartel-Wagner highlighted why it was necessary to incorporate CPE into Adventism: “Why did the Adventist Church start a CPE program if there were already other institutions and organizations running CPE? … There were chaplains who were troubled about some of their CPE programs because of things that were being taught that didn’t align with some of their beliefs, and so that became a growing issue….” Prospective trainees from other faiths are more than welcome to join, with the acceptance that the curriculum will be framed within an Adventist, biblical paradigm.

Wagner mentioned how CPE is spreading beyond chaplaincy boundaries and into pastoral ministry. “If pastors take CPE training, it will change their ministry. We have had a number of people who have said, ‘This has changed my life; this has changed my ministry. I wish I had done it ten years ago’… so it’s life-changing for the person that goes through it, and that impacts the lives of the people they are working with.”

The positive influence of Adventist CPE is not only personal and interpersonal, but even interdenominational. “The interesting thing about the Philippines center is the CPE participants often include nuns and priests. They enroll in the CPE program at the Adventist hospital because the program’s quality is so highly regarded ,” Bartel-Wagner said.

There are fascinating statistics confirming the increasing ubiquity of Adventist chaplaincy and CPE. Bartel-Wagner indicated there are more than 300 trainees enrolled in CPE units at the overseas centers alone, not even including North American numbers. Additionally, “We have many, many chaplains around the world. In October 2020, we held an online world congress that was actually supposed to be a live event before the General Conference session in June, and we had to divert to a virtual setting, we had over 820 chaplains from around the world who attended. So chaplaincy around the world… is exploding,” she said.

 Front-line Perspective

Omaña commenced his interview by noting the succinct essence of the philosophy of Adventist chaplaincy: Every chaplain is a pastor, but not every pastor can be a chaplain. He then covered some nuts-and-bolts elements: every hospital chaplain must be board-certified, and this requires successful completion of at least four units of CPE; each unit is comprised of 400 hours—100 hours of classroom instruction and 300 hours of practical, supervised ministry; CPE employs a clinical, three-step method of learning: action, reflection, and integration. In alignment with the statistics above, Omaña said, “In the last maybe four or five years, there has been this boom of desire to get some Clinical Pastoral Education within our church.”

CPE is of a highly confidential nature, as it fosters transparency and vulnerability. Communication between trainers and trainees stays tightly with the four walls. Nevertheless, Omaña was able to relay some testimonials, insomuch as they were neutral and unidentifiable. “Throughout this whole process, [a union president] has learned to hold the tension of wanting to do and having to be.… Sometimes, he wants to act in a way to help the person who is speaking with him, but sometimes what the person is saying is not what they need,” he accounted. “He has learned to hold his desire to do something about what people are saying and kind of unpack the story so that he can actually find what the real need is.… he is being a listener….”

Omaña further reinforced this sentiment: “You learn in chaplaincy, I learned it very quickly and I share it with my trainees… behind every behavior, there is always a story, and the job of the pastor is to unpack that story because that’s where the ministry is located.” To that end, CPE emphasizes stopping and listening, thus cultivating a two-pronged capacity for empathy (feeling) and compassion (action). He drove the point home by exclaiming it is more about being the sermon than it is about preaching one.

Omaña continued with more trainee feedback. A union president proclaimed, “I have better relationships with my wife and children because of what I learned in Clinical Pastoral Education.”

Another union president said, “I have completely changed the way I run my board meetings.” Because a statement like this seems unfitting on the surface, Omaña clarified how CPE can improve one’s inclination to grant others the opportunities to express their thoughts. Against the backdrop of something like a board meeting, this allows the decision-making process to be more collaborative than authoritative.

Omaña shared a testimony of his own. Through his experiences in hospital chaplaincy, he has interacted with many non-Adventists, which means they likely adhere to the popular yet faulty, dangerous belief in an immediate afterlife. He learned to dig past the instinct to fix theological issues and get to a deeper level of resonance with their yearning for hope and comfort. Sometimes, a patient, family member, or other supporter, one way or another, would open the door for Omaña to share the true, biblical message of hope God offers: temporarily resting in peaceful anticipation of Christ’s soon return.

 Conclusion

 Both Bartel-Wagner and Omaña mentioned that chaplaincy ministry weaves through several environments, including health care (hospital, hospice, nursing home), military, community (fire and police departments, marketplace, professional athletics), campus (Adventist, secular, etc.), and corrections. This variety is reflected in the list of endorsements available on the Adventist Chaplaincy Institute website (https://www.adventistchaplaincyinstitute.org/).

For a more comprehensive breadth of information regarding chaplaincy ministry, visit https://www.adventistchaplains.org/, which links to ACI and its handbook, where one can find all the pertinent details of Clinical Pastoral Education.