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The machine was breathing for him. His chest rose and fell with clockwork regularity as one son spoke: "So, chaplain, where is he now—spiritually I mean? He's still breathing; his heart's still beating. Maybe his spirit is still inside of him."

Even for experienced ministers, the hospital presents a unique challenge. The tough questions come faster and harder. We often feel insecure and out of our element. Nevertheless, there are a few fundamentals that can help you move past those moments of awkward anxiety and perceive opportunities for God to use you profoundly.

Leave behind any stereotypes you have about what a minister should look or sound like. These postures and agendas can become shells we retreat into when we feel unsure. Patients and staff will forgive you for being inexperienced or uncertain if they can see that you really care. But they see through posturing and pretension.

Avoid forcing the conversation in a certain direction. When you show genuine concern for people, they will automatically take the conversation where they need it to go.

When you feel awkward, try to determine why. Are others in the room giving nonverbal clues that they feel the same, or is it simply inside you? If either the patient or family seems genuinely uncomfortable with your presence, graciously offer to come back at another time. And do come back. This communicates that they are more to you than an item on your check list.

The prospect of opening ourselves up to the pain of others is another source of insecurity for ministers. Exposing yourself to suffering with the vulnerability necessary to minister well will eventually hurt you.

It's a bit like walking barefoot, and you will need to develop calluses. If the callous is too thick, you can't feel, even when you're being hurt. If it is too thin, you can't walk. You have to learn to be fully present and open to someone else's pain without being crippled by it.

Even the most experienced ministers will inevitably encounter stories that intersect their own life in such a way that they are thrown mentally and emotionally back into their own tragedy. It is during these times that we are most prone to use the people we minister to as a way of meeting our own needs.

Beware of situations that make you want to say, "I know exactly what you mean." One day I met a young woman who was quite upset about what appeared to be a blood clot in her arm.

Immediately I was catapulted back into the vortex of emotion I felt when my wife suffered a blood clot early in our marriage. I began sharing my own experience as a way of identifying with her situation. She left more terrified than she had come.

When you do experience this, it's best to pull back from whatever strong emotional statement you feel welling up. Then make a point to write or talk about it later. Dissect it. Figure out what triggered this reaction so you can learn to see it coming next time.

The importance of good peer support in this area cannot be overestimated. Formal or informal, written or spoken, build space for reflection and debriefing, preferably with other ministers, into your routine.

Finally, the sheer amount of pain in hospitals can be overwhelming. And though being truly present means experiencing the pain of those we minister to, ultimately it is not our pain to bear. If we do not recognize that, we will be running on empty when tragedy strikes in our own lives.

It is not our job to carry someone else's pain with us; it is not our job to fix what is wrong by saying or doing just the right thing at the right time. It is our job to incarnate the presence of God in the midst of suffering and tragedy. It is our job to serve as a reminder that God does not turn away from people in their pain, but is present with them in the midst of it.

Matt Lumpkin is a former hospital chaplain currently attending Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.
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