Corporate Chaplains

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Corporate Chaplains – Script:

Dee Rucker is helping corporate employees improve productivity in a most unusual way.

Dee Rucker, Corporate Chaplain: “Once they laugh, I’m ready to leave their office.”

This United Methodist is a corporate chaplain, offering a potential benefit to employees that management cannot.

Dee Rucker, Corporate Chaplain: “We offer the employee a person who cares about what their concern is.”

Rucker works for Marketplace Ministries, a company founded in 1984 with one chaplain. The service has since expanded to 1,300 chaplains in 35 states.

Gil Stricklin, Founder, Marketplace Ministries: “Everybody is in one of three categories: They’ve got a problem, they just had a problem or they’re getting ready to have a problem.”

David Byrd, president of Leadership Management Incorporated, is a client of the ministry. He says that helping people address their personal problems increases productivity.

David Byrd, President, Leadership Management Incorporated: “Dealing with a life issue from a spiritual perspective is far more effective.”

Employee Karon agrees. She turned to Dee for help with a defiant teenage daughter.

Karon: “She needed some spiritual help and some spiritual guidance and I needed some help. And we both got it and it meant so much.”

Some do have misgivings – concern that the program blurs the line between work and religion. But supporters argue the process is voluntary.

Gil Stricklin, Founder, Marketplace Ministries: “I don’t wear a cross around my neck to make you feel uncomfortable because you don’t have one. I simply go in there as a fellow human being who knows what pain and sorrow and sadness is all about.”

With Americans spending more time in the work place than anywhere else, the message “the company cares” can go a long way.

Corporate Chaplains – Tag:

Corporate chaplains are nondenominational and will minister to any member of the employee’s family if called to do so.