An increasing demand for chaplains—in traditional settings such as hospitals, schools, prisons and the military, as well as corporate and other workplace locales—is prompting Seventh-day Adventist church leaders to discuss how to meet the growing demand.

The discussions were held, ironically, on the same day that church administrators at the world headquarters hosted a reception for Rear Admiral Barry Black—recently installed as the new U.S. Senate chaplain. Black is the first African-American, the first military chaplain and the first Seventh-day Adventist to hold the position.

But a visiting U.S. Army chaplain, speaking a short distance from the Black luncheon, said that in the 1930s and 1940s most in the U.S. military didn’t know what a Seventh-day Adventist was. Now there are 46 Adventist military chaplains on active duty.

“Things have progressed,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Edwin E. Bowen, an Adventist military chaplain, speaking at the Conference on Religious and Theological Education held July 7 to 10 at the church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. Some 90 Adventist theologians and educators from around the world gathered to discuss various issues involving the transmission of Adventist theology to college students and the training of pastoral candidates for the church, which is growing globally at a rate of two per minute. On July 9 they met to discuss locating, encouraging, selecting, and training future chaplains for campuses, hospitals, and the military.

Featured guest speakers were Bowen, director of pastoral care at Walter Reid Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Rich Carlson, chaplain at Union College, an Adventist institution in Lincoln, Nebraska. Both have served 20 years in their professions.

Bowen asked, “Can any good come out of the military?” He said it’s a fertile mission field and pointed out that 2,000 years ago people asked if any good could come out of Nazareth.

A chaplain supports something essential to Adventists and many others: the right to free exercise of religion in the military, said Bowen. “[The chaplain] serves as a parish minister for many faiths—atheist, Druid, Catholic, Adventist.”

Chaplains, Bowen said, provide spiritual, religious and moral leadership to the entire [military] community through the exercise of spiritual leadership and the nurture of individuals.

Until 1999, he said, Adventist military chaplains were only found in North America. Today there is one in Malawi, two in Ghana, one in Kenya, and a reserve military chaplain in the Czech Republic. Adventist church regions around the world are in the process of setting guidelines for military chaplains in their territory.

At Union College, Carlson sends an e-mail to all students every day called “Good Morning Union” with a short thought to start the day. “It challenges me to stay faithful in my devotions, and it shows them good things come out of devotions.”

He wants students to have an intelligent loyalty to the Adventist Church—not a blind loyalty. “I want to establish in them a confidence in this church because [they’ve] looked at this church,” he said.

Carlson doesn’t chair any campus committees that he’s in charge of—students do that instead, he explained: “They need to learn how to be in charge of those things.” He said it empowers the students—helping them to succeed in the work they’ve been given, versus just delegating the work to make his job easier.

He has found that young adults are active in church because they were active when they were still in school. He dismisses those who indicate otherwise.

“There is little significant difference between attendance of students of Union College and five years after they leave,” said Carlson, “which is quite contrary to the editorial conclusions of some.” His finding is based on a survey mailed out to graduates five years after leaving college. “Christian education pays off,” he said.