Posted: 5/25/07

Chaplain ministers at world’s
busiest U.S. military trauma center

By Patricia Heys

Associated Baptist Press

U.S. AIR FORCE THEATER HOSPITAL, Iraq (ABP)—At the U.S. Air Force Theater Hospital in Iraq, the sounds of Army Blackhawk and Marine Sea Knight helicopters are a call to duty for Air Force Chaplain Shane Gaster.

Gaster, one of more than 90 military chaplains endorsed by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, is stationed at the Air Force Theater Hospital—the busiest U.S. trauma center in the world. He works 12-hour shifts, six days a week, ministering to wounded men and women brought in by helicopters and humvee trucks.

“My chaplain assistant and I respond to the emergency department whenever we hear choppers incoming, or when ‘trauma code in the ED’ is sounded over the intercom,” Gaster said. “We are an extra set of hands for the doctors and nurses, and we do assist them. But our primary duty is, in Air Force terms, ‘a visible reminder of the holy.’ We are there to pray for the patients and the rest of the medical team.”

Gaster serves not only the emergency department but also four intensive-care units and four intermediate-care wards. From the Air Force hospital, patients either return to duty or are flown to medical centers in Germany and the United States. And while the survival rate at the hospital is 98 percent, one of Gaster’s primary responsibilities is to minister to the dying.

“Every time I am paged to a bedside where someone is dying, I think to myself, ‘I am able to be with this person as they leave this world, this temporary life,’” Gaster said. “I am able to pray for their families who may still be wondering what happened to them. Whether it is in the emergency room, the (operating room) or the ICU, there is a sense of being present with a human being when their life is ebbing away with their final breaths. Who is to say what these final prayers can do? Intercessory prayer is more real to me here than anywhere.”

Gaster, who began serving as an Air Force chaplain in 1989, also has worked in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. He made his first combat tour to Iraq in 2004 and was stationed in Baghdad.

George Pickle, CBF specialist for chaplaincy and pastoral counseling, praised Gaster’s sensitivity and dedication. “His ministry is a clear communication that these injured and dying people are not alone,” Pickle said.

In his current position, Gaster ministers to everyone in the hospital, including doctors, nurses, technicians and non-American patients. Besides treating American troops, the staff helps coalition forces, Iraqi police, civilians and enemy prisoners of war.

“In America, we take the enemy that we capture, and our sense of the sanctity of life gives us no alternative but to give them the best care and treatment we can,” Gaster said. “That is part of what Jesus meant when he said. ‘Love your enemies.’”

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Posted: 5/25/07

As the war goes on,
so does the work of military

By Marcia Nelson

Religion News Service

CHICAGO (RNS)—Once you’ve seen the brutal face of evil, you start looking for the tender face of God, Chaplain Robert Barry said.

Barry is an Air National Guard chaplain who spends his summers working with injured soldiers at Landstuhl military hospital in southern Germany, where American military personnel are taken after they are wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It’s also where Barry gets frequent prayer requests from patients and staff. No one at Landstuhl ever has turned down a prayer, he noted.

“Nobody has said, ‘That’s not necessary,’” said Barry, a lieutenant colonel in the 183rd Fighter Wing of the Illinois Air National Guard.

Barry, a Dominican priest, will serve his third tour at Landstuhl this summer during a break from his duties as campus minister and religious studies professor at Chicago’s St. Xavier University.

Landstuhl, he said, is the most challenging ministry of his career.

“I’ve never prayed as hard as we do there,” said Barry, 59.

And it’s getting harder, as the military faces a shortage of chaplains. The Army National Guard, for example, is offering a $10,000 signing bonus for chaplains. Major Timothy L. Baer, the chaplain in charge of recruiting, said he has only 340 chaplains to fill 770 authorized positions.

Lt. Col. Ran Dolinger, spokesman for the Army Chief of Chaplains office, said there are about 452 vacancies among 3,000 chaplain slots in the National Guard, Army Reserve and active-duty positions. About 300 of those vacancies are in the National Guard branches, he said.

“They don’t have a lot of people who can and want to do this kind of work,” Barry said.

Chaplains are among the first to greet new patients at Landstuhl after the 2,500-mile journey from Iraq.

A team of nine offloads troops arriving on stretchers, which can weigh up to 600 pounds with all the critical- care equipment.

Some patients may not even know where they are; some arrive with desert sand still in their hair. “You’re in Germany,” Barry tells them. “We’re going to take good care of you.”

Barry can fulfill the simplest request, like getting a toothbrush for someone who hasn’t brushed his teeth in three days. But he is more likely to meet spiritual needs, administering the Catholic sacrament of the sick when requested. “I’ve never anointed so many people in my life,” he said.

Because combat armor protects the trunk of the body, the injuries Barry sees generally involve soldiers’ limbs. He knows what to look for as he enters a patient’s room.

“The first thing you look at are the bedcovers, and you look to see if there are lumps in the covers that should be there and aren’t,” he said.

Patients with missing limbs are just beginning to grasp the significance of what has happened to them, an experience of secondary trauma that can be difficult to witness and respond to.

Barry recalls one patient in the intensive care unit, propped up in bed, “looking down, mouth open, both feet below the ankle gone,” he said.

Barry said he was changed by what he called the “raw, bold courage” of wounded warriors. “Things that were important to me before are less important now,” he said. Climbing the academic ladder is one of them.

He also has greater appreciation for the need for spiritual comfort.

“The word really has power with these people,” he said. “Shrapnel hits the body, but it also hits the soul, and that’s where we come in.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

DEPLOYED: Baptist pastor ministers in Iraq

By Jim White

Virginia Religious Herald

HARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—Joel Jenkins, pastor of First Baptist Church of Charlottesville, Va., temporarily changed congregations last year—and the relocation was extreme. Jenkins, a longtime Army Reserve chaplain, was called to active duty in Iraq last June with barely a week’s notice.

For the past 11 months, Jenkins has called a forward operating base in Baghdad’s international zone home. He is assigned to the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, which employs military and civilian forces from several nations to train and equip Iraq’s army, navy, air force and police force.

Jenkins with Commander Lieut. Gen. Dempsey of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. See Related Articles: • Frontline Ministry: Baptist chaplain meets spiritual needs in combat • Chaplain ministers at world's busiest U.S. military trauma center • As the war goes on, so does the work of military • DEPLOYED: Baptist pastor ministers in Iraq • Cadets learn Islam as part of winning the peace • Chaplain strives to be the presence of Christ in war zone • Southern Baptist tapped as Army chief of chaplains • Family collects tributes to fallen soldier as “sacred relics • Chaplains prep West Point cadets for spiritual warfare • San Antonio volunteers serve wounded warriors

“The ministry here is very diverse,” Jenkins said. Police units from the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and Poland and soldiers from Great Britain, South Korea, Macedonia, Romania and the United States are a part of the command.

“We also have multi-components of Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines all in the same command over here, which is very interesting. We are all having to learn each others’ ranks, nomenclature and acronyms. If there is anybody who has more acronyms than Baptists, it’s the military.”

In addition to leading services at his home base in Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday, Jenkins and his assistant travel to all parts of the country ministering to the troops assigned to the multi-national command.

“We spend two or three days at a time with our folks. Many of the troops are embedded in Iraqi units, so they don’t have any kind of chaplain support. Many times they don’t have the amenities like a PX, and they certainly don’t have a chapel. So, we’ll go in and spend two or three days with them and encourage them,” he said.

During his absence from the Charlottesville church, lay leaders have worked with the staff to continue the congregation’s ministry, he noted. Lindsay Sadler, the senior associate pastor, filled the pulpit and provided leadership.

Jenkins plans to fill his pulpit at First Baptist in Charlottesville on Father’s Day and then take a month to spend with his wife and family before returning to pastoral duties full time in August.

During his time in Iraq, Jenkins has witnessed the toll that living with the constant threat of danger and death takes on the troops.

“We’ve seen it among those air crews that are up every single day and in the troops that provide PSD (personal security detail) for the admirals and generals,” he said. “We see it in the convoy escort teams called rough riders. I try to spend a good bit of time with those folks in particular.”

He recalled a visit with a young Marine in a personal security detail assigned to an admiral. The Marine described how in his daily travels, he encountered improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades.

“He said: ‘Chaplain, I need to talk to you, because every night I dream that I’m going to die. I die different ways, but by the time I get to the end of my dream, I die.’ So, we talked about it and found out that this young man had been brought up in a Christian home but had never declared a personal faith for himself,” Jenkins said.

Their conversation continued, and the Marine ended up praying to invite Christ to take control of his life. Jenkins subsequently baptized him.

“He came back in later and said: ‘You know, Chaplain, I’m not having that dream anymore. My job is just as dangerous, but I don’t go out anymore with the fear that I had. I may not come back, but if I don’t come back, I’m OK, and I’m at peace about that.’ I saw a dramatic difference in him,” Jenkins recalled.

But others react to the stress differently. Some have become emotionally broken and must receive treatment, he noted.

“I’m leaving tomorrow to accompany … one of our soldiers to Landstuhl” Regional Medical Center in Germany, he said. “I normally don’t do that, but this is a soldier that I’ve worked with, and he’s requested me to do this. … So, we see a lot of situations like that, and this young man is what I would call post-traumatic stress that he’s dealing with, and he’s going to need some long-term help. And then when he gets out, he’s going to be going back home to his home community and his home church.

“Sometimes against their fears, they continue to do their jobs. Interestingly enough, most of them believe in what they are doing. They realize it is a tough road, and things are not happening nearly as fast as they would like for the better, but most of them believe in the Iraqis they see and meet and work with; they believe they are decent people who basically just want to have security for their children and a decent future.”

But sometimes things get tough even for the chaplain. Recently, Jenkins performed a memorial service—his fifth—for an officer in his command.

“I’m grateful that it hasn’t been more than that. Some of our chaplains serving with line units have done 10 or 12,” he said. The officer was a Navy commander who was killed by a vehicle-borne IED. “He was one of four killed in a vehicle, an interpreter and two security officers. Only one was military. We did his service here at our base and had about 400 attending.”

Jenkins hopes churches will pay particular attention to returning veterans, many of whom will be feeling the effects of war for many months or years to come. In addition to whatever ministries may be started by churches close to military institutions designed to offer the love of Christ, he hopes church people will simply express appreciation.

“It touches them if somebody just says, ‘Thanks.’ To realize that somebody’s been over here, they don’t have to make a big speech, but if they’ll just put an arm on their shoulder and say, ‘Hey, I just want to thank you for going for us.’

“It’s amazing that it helps validate that they were trying to do the right thing. A lot of them are struggling with the attitude of people back home. They’re wondering, ‘Do they hate us? Do they think we’re bad guys?’ … Some of them are struggling. In a sense, they are looking for approval; not so much approval of the conflict, but just of them as persons.

“I think that would be wonderful if somebody knows they’ve got a vet coming back just to pat him on the back and say, ‘Hey, thank you!’ and also probably just to be a good listener if they need to talk.’”

Jenkins is careful, however, not to give the wrong impression of the troops serving in Iraq. “I want to applaud these young folks. … They are here because they love their country. They want to serve their country, and the thing about it is they are all volunteers. None of them was drafted. Every single one of them signed on the dotted line. You would be amazed at the number of them that re-enlist while they are here. They are saying, ‘If I have to come back, I will.’ I’m just encouraged about the future of our country when I see the kind of young people who are over here.”

The experience of living with constant danger creates for many a sense of larger purpose and the growth of faith, Jenkins said.

“I have only come across one person who told me that he is an atheist—only one,” he said. “Almost everyone I’ve talked to has told me that they have drawn from their faith and strengthened their faith. I’ve heard from people who have gone back home and they tell me: ‘I’m still practicing my faith. I’m still enjoying what it means to me in my life.’”

As Jenkins prepares to return to the States and his Virginia pulpit, he wonders what changes may be in store. He is certain the experience in Iraq has changed him deeply.

He vows not to worry about inconsequential things and love deeply and purely in the spirit of Christ. He is confident he will find ways to show those closest to him that his love is more than professed.

“Because you don’t know if you’re going to have another day to do that,” he said. “I’ve learned that here; and you don’t know that they’re going to have another day for you to bless them.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

FRONTLINE MINISTRY:
Baptist chaplain meets spiritual needs in combat

By Barbara Bedrick

BGCT Communications

The closer people get to a foxhole, the more spiritual they generally become, a frontline military chaplain observed.

Tough circumstances—and the accompanying escalated interest in spiritual matters—provide countless opportunities for military chaplains like U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Perdue of the 1st Marine Division, who recently returned from a one-year tour of duty in Baghdad and Fallujah as a multi-national Marine Expeditionary Force chaplain.

“On three occasions, rocket and mortar fire landed within 50 yards of our chapel and killed a civilian contractor 30 feet away,” Perdue recalled.

Perdue, a Baptist General Convention of Texas-endorsed chaplain, prays with military convoys before they go out, and he helps lead Bible studies, support groups and worship services.

Danger never is far away, but Perdue insists “duty, fear of letting other chaplains down and a deep desire for Marines and sailors to have a positive image and role model of faith in the midst of crisis” keep him motivated.

In addition to directing 48 chaplains and their religious program specialists—who serve as the chaplains’ bodyguards—in ministering to about 32,000 Marines on the battlefield, Perdue served as adviser to Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer on spiritual, ethical, moral and religious issues.

In the combat zone, each chaplain ministers to a group of 500 to 1,000 Marines, which is “something like being the pastor of a church, but it’s more like you are with them wherever they go,” Perdue added.

“You have the opportunity to invest yourself with them in a combat setting, to be in the foxhole with them, to go on patrols and convoys, to pray with them before they go out on patrols and to counsel with them when they have issues such as family problems, grief concerns or other stress and spiritual needs,” Perdue said.

One of 850 active-duty military chaplains, Perdue says about one in three are Baptists. Perdue, who calls Cranes Mill Baptist Church at Canyon Lake his home church, began his military career as a Navy F-4 jet fighter pilot, graduated from Baylor University, received his master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was ordained by Baptist Temple Church in San Antonio.

Perdue was one of the first chaplains endorsed by the BGCT. They now number 410, noted Bobby Smith, BGCT chaplaincy relations director.

Ministering at the chapel or in foxholes, Perdue has witnessed hundreds of people come to faith in Christ.

Dozens of Marines have been baptized in the Euphrates River, water-filled buckets of bulldozers, holes dug in the ground and in water tanks, he noted.

At Fallujah, about 8,000 Marines attend as many as 15 services and Bible studies each week. Weekly worship services average about 800 people.

As Iraqi mortar fire rips through the air, military chaplains work to mold relationships in the trenches, at military bases and in chapels, he said. Enemy fire has no respect for human lives, but military chaplains are touching lives in extraordinary ways.

“Where faith has been jarred because of the horrors of war, chaplains have the opportunity to counsel,” Perdue said. “The more the chaplains are with the Marines … they build up their credibility with them. Later, they will come to the chaplains and unload. And it’s in that setting the chaplain has opportunity to touch them in their spiritual lives.”

U.S. Marine Chaplain Greg Cates conducts a hasty and humble Bible study.

But even the faithful start to question when mortar fire kills a colleague only yards away. “Being near death, being near explosions, seeing your Marines injured, and visiting Marines in medical facilities who have lost limbs or been victim of improvised explosive devices can cause your faith to weaken,” Perdue acknowledged.

Many people wonder how God can permit injury and death in the combat zone, Perdue said. But that is when chaplains encourage a closer walk with God through worship, study and prayer.

When he visited Marine and Army forces at Ramadi in July 2006, casualties were brought into the morgue, Perdue recalled. Improvised explosive devices killed three soldiers.

“Along with my Roman Catholic chaplain friend, we entered the morgue and gathered the staff around the body bags,” Perdue said. “In the midst of death and grief and stress, we offered Scripture readings and prayers.”

Afterward, they talked at length with the staff who knew the dead personally.

“Because we were there, we were able to offer the hope, love and grace that our Lord Jesus offers,” Perdue said.

Ministering in wartime can cause even chaplains to question their faith. Perdue recalled how one chaplain could not enter the morgue because he thought he had seen too many bodies in recent months.

Still, Perdue remembers praying for the 100th time for God to spare his life and the lives of others as sniper and rocket fire hit nearby.

“As a chaplain, you try to use every little thing you can to influence others. We often use the chapel as a testimony to God’s protection,” Perdue said.

Iraqi children play with toy guns outside the insurgent wing at a Baghdad hospital where U.S. Marine Chaplain Bill Perdue ministered to about a dozen injured soldiers.

Perdue relies on his faith to help him survive as a chaplain and to help others in combat, which he calls one of the most stressful situations facing a human.

“I have always believed that nothing can come into my life without God’s permission,” he said. He has found that belief a source of strength when his faith is tested.

For Perdue, the most meaningful part of his chaplaincy duties in Iraq is the opportunity to preach and lead worship in a combat zone.

“Life-and-death issues, normally suppressed by 20-somethings, are vivid and critical,” Perdue notes. “The Scripture always comes alive in preaching, but it seemed particularly relevant at Fallujah as we gathered weekly to worship and remember those who were killed or injured the week before.”

One of Perdue’s most meaningful memories that affected the entire Marine force was the role he played in shepherding the development of a “warrior transition” program, which deals with post-deployment operational stress. It educates all Marines on the signs and symptoms of operational stress that could lead to post traumatic stress syndrome.

Helping military personnel who have been injured in combat return to life back home resonates with retired military chaplain Brig. Gen. Jim Spivey, who lives in Fort. Worth. As president of the Military Chaplaincy Association, Spivey points out that an actual brain injury suffered in combat may not have initially been discernible. One of the most critical problems facing returning troops is post-traumatic stress disorder, he added.

“Where the rubber meets the road is when people return to their homes and to their churches,” Spivey said. “Most of our pastors and our church staff members have no military background or context to understand the problems, yet many have members who are returning from war.”

There is a growing need to help churches gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the problem so they can assist returning military church members, he said. The church has a “critical role in that,” he added.

Chaplains sometimes have opportunities to share with the most unlikely people. Perdue called his encounter with an imam at Haditha an “extraordinary event” that showed him people of different faiths, even amid strife and turmoil, can find common ground and engage in dialogue.

From counseling to pastoral care at surgical units, taking care of the wounded and stressed, and praying, chaplains like Perdue face their own struggles on the battlefield, but when they can make a difference in someone’s life, it somehow seems easier to bear.

“What impacts lives the most on the battlefield is the presence of a chaplain, to be with people wherever they are,” Perdue said. “Seeing a Marine who attended worship services two weeks ago now come to be baptized” makes it worthwhile.

Support from home makes a difference as well. Hundreds of churches and individuals are helping make combat life easier. They have sent thousands of boxes to Iraq directly to the chaplains to distribute. Perdue’s home church of about 100 members regularly sends boxes of anything from toothpaste to baby wipes to magazines to peanuts and popcorn.

Perdue will retire in September 2008 and plans to return to Texas.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

Cadets learn Islam as part of ‘winning the peace’

By Wayne Woolley

Religion News Service

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (RNS)—The lights in a Jersey City mosque flickered at dawn, and more than a dozen West Point cadets stirred in sleeping bags scattered across the prayer room.

As Imam Hussein Wahdan began the melodious call to prayer in Arabic, bearded men filed past the cadets, kneeled and then bowed to the floor to begin their morning worship.

The cadets came to Jersey City for three days to be immersed in the religious and cultural life of one of the most ethnically diverse cities in America, the highlight of a semester-long course called “Winning the Peace.”

They met imams and observed prayers at mosques, a Hindu temple and an African-American church. They met leaders and young people from the city’s Indian, Pakistani and Egyptian Coptic Christian communities. They heard from Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who talked about the challenges of governing a city where 50 languages are spoken.

The aim of the course and field trip is to give future Army lieutenants insight into cultures and religions that may be unfamiliar to them. It is part of a broad recognition by the U.S. military that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that troops in the field must win the trust of the local people to have any hope of defeating an enemy hiding among them.

The elective course first was offered in 2003. Although the launch of “Winning the Peace” coincided with the beginning of the Iraq war, the idea came from a West Point instructor who had just returned from a humanitarian exercise in Haiti and saw a vast culture gap between the soldiers and the people they were trying to help.

Col. Cindy Jebb, the deputy head of West Point’s department of social sciences, said the Army is trying to send a message to its future officers that they will lead troops into many kinds of battles. All West Point cadets receive commissions as Army 2nd lieutenants upon graduation.

“In the 1990s, we as an Army went through a kind of schizophrenia. Are we war fighters? Or are we peacekeepers?” Jebb said. “It’s clear right now that we’re both.”

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Posted: 5/25/07

Chaplain strives to be the
presence of Christ in war zone

By Bob Perkins Jr.

Associated Baptist Press

L ANBAR, Iraq (ABP)—Chaplain Alan Rogers has baptized a Marine in an Iraqi river under armed protection. Needless to say, it was a quick job.

A Marine Corps corporal asked Rogers to baptize in the Euphrates River in Iraq, near the Syrian border.

“He courageously made a public proclamation of his faith in front of his squad as they crouched in the bushes on the riverbank, providing security for us,” Rogers recalled. “When he emerged from the water, I said, ‘God bless you, my brother.’ He replied, ‘God bless you too, Chaps. Now, let’s get out of here before we get shot!’”

Rogers was commissioned in the Navy Chaplains Corps in 2004 and is assigned to the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. His role is to facilitate the exercise of religion and accommodate the religious needs and practices of Marines, sailors and their families.

“I strive to bring both a ministry of presence and a ministry of purpose through actions that deliberately provide proactive and responsive ministry support to every member of the force,” said Rogers, a graduate of Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology and a Cooperative Bap-tist Fellowship-endorsed chaplain.

He provides pastoral care to all members of the unit and their families, regardless of their faith or lack thereof.

“In this context, it’s perhaps the most religiously pluralistic ministry setting anywhere,” Rogers said. “I am the ‘Chaps’ not only for the Baptist, Protestant or Christian Marine or sailor, but equally serve those of many faith groups who are afforded the same religious freedoms they serve here to defend.”

Rogers called his situation a “microcosm of the best of the religious liberty of America,” and he called himself “blessed to serve these who are truly among America’s best, brightest and most dedicated guardians of freedom.”

He routinely goes into the battlefield, accompanying armed personnel on patrols, in convoys, or just being there to share a conversation or a meal.

“This setting provides the best opportunity for me to listen as these men express concerns that would not be so readily discussed in another context,” Rogers said.

“Although I only share a small fraction of the hardship and danger they experience, through my presence I develop credibility and earn trust by simply being with them where they are, sharing with them some of their burdens and helping them shoulder some of their emotional and spiritual loads.”

Rogers offers field worship services at battlefield locations.

“I regularly offer short devotionals, prayers and quick words of encouragement,” Rogers said. “It’s a humbling experience to pray with these young men as they do a final check of their gear prior to embarking on a combat patrol.”

As with any military operation, casualties are a way of life. Rogers said ministering to the wounded and dying is the least desirable but arguably most meaningful of his duties.

“While I always strive to offer ministry respecting the distinctive faith group of the individual within the scope of my own endorsement, it is most often a calm presence and reassuring touch and tone they most value,” Rogers said.

“As difficult as this aspect of ministry is, it is also a sacred responsibility and privilege to hold the hand, pray with and offer encouragement to these who are hurting,” he said.

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Posted: 5/25/07

Southern Baptist tapped
as Army chief of chaplains

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Chaplain Douglas Carver has been nominated to serve as the next U.S. Army chief of chaplains—the first Southern Baptist to lead the Army’s chaplain corps in more than 50 years.

Carver, 55, also has been recommended for promotion in rank from brigadier general to major general. Pending Senate confirmation, he will be promoted to his new position at a July 12 ceremony at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Carver is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., as well as the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

He has served as pastor of Baptist churches in Kentucky, Colorado and Virginia, and he is endorsed by the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board.

“Any position of responsibility in life that comes to us comes from the Lord, and I know God is the one who has done this,” he said.

Carver expressed appreciation to the “Sunday school teachers, Royal Ambassador directors and others within my community of faith who have shaped me since childhood.”

He served as a chaplain with the 101st Airborne. He also was director of training at the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School in Fort Jackson, S.C., before becoming deputy chief of chaplains for the Army in 2005.

Chaplains serving in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan not only face the stresses common to all military chaplains, but also some unique challenges, Carver noted.

“Many of the chaplains in my generation missed Vietnam. They have served in a series of relatively short-term military interventions, but nothing of the duration or scale of the current engagement,” he said.

All military chaplains prepare for ministry to wounded personnel and to bereaved families, but medical advances and the extensive use of improvised explosive devices combine to make the current ministry setting somewhat different, he noted.

“The good news is that advances in medicine have extended the lives of soldiers with extensive injuries,” he said. At the same time, he acknowledged, “because of the IEDs, we’re dealing with more traumatic brain injuries, as well as acute traumatic stress.”

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Posted: 5/25/07

Family collects tributes to
fallen soldier as ‘sacred relics’

By Wayne Woolley

Religion News Service

OUTH AMBOY, N.J. (RNS)—It happens every time a U.S. soldier or Marine dies in Iraq. The bad news immediately spreads across the base like wildfire, and in the troop recreation centers, Internet connections are shut down.

Commanders don’t want word of the death to reach the soldier’s family before military officials personally deliver the news. Once the knock at the family door comes between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., the electronic blockade back in Iraq is lifted and a torrent of e-mails flows from the battlefield to the dead soldier’s family in America.

The practice of military commanders sending personal letters to the families of fallen troops dates at least to the Civil War. But in an era when deployed soldiers can maintain MySpace pages, families have immediate access to a digital community of former comrades offering condolences, stories and even glimpses into a loved one’s final hours.

This is exactly what happened after Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Sebban, a senior combat medic in the 82nd Airborne Division who grew up in South Amboy, N.J., was killed by an explosion while tending to wounded paratroopers in Iraq.

Sebban, 29, died March 17 in Baquba. By 6 p.m. in New Jersey, the phone rang in the casualty assistance office at Fort Monmouth.

Three hours later, a chaplain and two officers arrived at Sebban’s mother’s home in Neshanic Station. Then, almost immediately after the visit, came a tide of personal e-mails offering condolences and testimonials to Sebban’s life.

Among the first was one from Sgt. John Gilbert, a fellow medic. “He risked his life to make sure others were not harmed,” Gilbert wrote. “That’s the type of person he was.”

The missives sent from the field to Sebban’s family paint a portrait of a young man who could be funny, generous and uncompromising in performing his duties—all at the same time. The e-mails describe a practical joker, a confidant who lent $600 to a fellow soldier who really needed it, and someone who was at work saving lives the day he died.

Messages from the combat zone become a central part of the shrine many families eventually erect in their home, said Joanne Steen, a grief counselor and author who advises the Pentagon on how to help military families cope with loss.

“People have a tendency of collecting and saving those things that belong to the deceased; they’re sacred relics,” said Steen, who lost her husband, a naval aviator, in a training accident. “You can never get enough information about your loved one. Each time they hear a story or get an e-mail, that’s another piece of the puzzle they didn’t have.”

Besides his mother, Barbara Walsh, a nurse who was working as a missionary in Africa when he was born, Sebban is survived by two younger brothers, Daniel, 28, and David, 27. Both are Army veterans.

Daniel Sebban said the family decided to share the e-mails about his brother soon after they began arriving from Iraq and then from other military outposts around the globe. Messages also arrived from sources as varied as the owner of a pizza parlor in South Amboy, former classmates at a Bible college in New York and a Navy physician who urged Benjamin Sebban to consider a career in medicine.

“These e-mails say more about who my brother really was than I can,” Daniel Sebban said.

The e-mails written by the men and women who served with Sebban return to many of the same themes—his skills as a medic, his generosity, his sense of humor and his love for the Army. Many make references to Sebban’s deep Christian faith.

Walsh recalled how her son begged her to let him transfer from a parochial high school to a vocational school for a new health technology program. She knew there was a future for her son in medicine, but something was pulling him toward the military. He almost joined the Navy after high school. His mother steered him on another path.

“Benjamin, just give God one year of your life,” she said. He went to a school in upstate New York that prepares young Christians for missionary life. He liked it enough that he finished a second year, then moved to Chattanooga, Tenn., to finish a degree at a Bible college.

His younger brother had joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky. The brothers talked about military life, and Barbara Walsh soon got a phone call from her oldest son.

“Mom, I just met an Army recruiter, and they’ve got one slot open for a medic,” Benjamin told her.

Walsh’s youngest son, David, soon followed his brothers into the Army. Even after his brothers left the military, Benjamin Sebban stayed in, rising quickly through the enlisted ranks.

Walsh had protested the Vietnam War and never imagined any of her sons would join the military. “They could be pastors, they could be missionaries,” she remembered thinking when they were young. But she learned to accept their decisions, especially Benjamin’s.

The last time Walsh heard from Sebban, he had good news. He had been promoted from staff sergeant to sergeant first class. That meant he was within two ranks of the highest enlisted position, sergeant major. He talked of making a career of the Army.

“Two days later,” she said, “he was dead.”

In one of the dozens of e-mails that have come from Iraq, Staff Sgt. Brian Merry wrote that Sebban had talked often about a visit he made to Arlington National Cemetery before shipping out. He had insisted Merry do the same.

Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin L. Sebban was buried at Arlington. Meanwhile, the e-mails from Iraq keep coming.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

Chaplains prep West Point
cadets for spiritual warfare

By Gregory Tomlin

Baptist Press

EST POINT, N.Y. (BP)—Southern Baptist chaplains Col. John Cook and Lt. Col. Darrell Thomsen, along with other chaplains at West Point, mourn the loss of 51 academy graduates since the war began.

Still, new cadets keep coming with a desire to serve. Among the cadets are Cook’s twin sons, both “plebes”—first-year students. Despite the risks involved with service, Cook said he is proud his sons, Jonathan and Joshua, have chosen to attend West Point.

“This is the only place they applied,” he said. “It was the only place they wanted to be.”

Each West Point cadet is mindful of the burdens of duty to their nation in wartime, and they are aware the path of service they’ve chosen may even cost them their lives, the Baptist chaplains noted.

“The cadets here know that,” said Cook, the academy’s senior chaplain and adviser to the superintendent on religious affairs. “In fact, all of our cadets who are currently students here made the decision to come to West Point after Sept. 11, 2001. So, they knew when they came here that there is a significant possibility that they will be going into combat.”

“We help them work through the fear that goes along with combat,” said Thomsen, the academy’s Protestant cadet chaplain. “There is a lot of power in fear, but there’s more power in faith.”

Chaplains at West Point are involved in a “ministry of preparation,” Cook said.

The chaplains work with students who have questions about war, killing and about what will happen to them if they die in combat. They attempt to resolve these issues within the cadets’ first two years at the academy, before they must commit to a term of service as an officer in the Army and face possible deployments overseas.

“They know they need to be prepared,” Cook said. “We don’t want them blindly graduating from here. We have a responsibility to see that they work through this whether they ask about it or not. If they don’t ask, we put it on the table for them. They’ve got to resolve it.”

It helps the cadets at West Point to know the chaplains themselves have dealt with many of the same issues they will face. Both Cook and Thomsen served in combat, Thomsen in Panama with the 82nd Airborne Division in 1989 and both men in Desert Storm in 1991.

Cook was a battalion chaplain with the 18th Airborne Corps and lost one soldier during the 100-hour ground war in 1991. He saw rocket launchers and helicopters engage Iraqi troops and tanks in his area. Thomsen also lost some of his troops in a minefield.

From 2004 to 2005, just prior to his most recent duty station at West Point, Cook also was chaplain to the Coalition Land Forces Component in Kuwait. Being with the soldiers in the theater of combat operations is what he and other chaplains call the “ministry of presence,” an indispensable service to troops under fire.

“We weren’t there with weapons. We weren’t there to take lives. We were there to care for our soldiers on the battlefield,” Cook said.

Caring for soldiers meant treating them after they had been wounded, writing a letter to family members for them, and even relaying messages to wounded comrades.

It meant sharing the gospel when the opportunity presented itself. Cook led 27 soldiers to Christ during Operation Desert Storm and baptized 15.

When a death occurs, notifying families of the loss of their loved becomes the focus of ministry. The death notification is the most unpleasant of the chaplains’ duties, they said. Both have been called on to be bearers of the grim news when soldiers from the area surrounding West Point have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thomsen said the visits never are easy because every family is unsuspecting.

“I’d rather go to combat than I would make a death notification,” he said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

San Antonio volunteers
serve wounded warriors

By George Henson

Staff Writer

SAN ANTONIO—Two teams of volunteers at First Baptist Church in San Antonio are working to minister to soldiers and families during some of their most trying times.

Tom and Nell Kolterman lead a team of volunteers who provide and serve a meal to soldiers and their families at Powless House, a residential facility at Fort Sam Houston for wounded soldiers who need long-term outpatient care provided by Brooke Army Medical Center.

The team prepares and serves meals to between 100 and 150 people every-other month.

But the ministry goes beyond filling people’s stomachs, Kolterman stressed.

“While we are serving, we have an opportunity to interact with these young people who have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and also their families,” he said.

After the meal, volunteers lead a bingo game, and the team also provides gift cards to local businesses as prizes.

While the ministry is fulfilling, it also can be difficult, Kolterman acknowledged.

“It is quite a blessing, but it’s something you have to get used to because you see some awful stuff sometimes,” he said of the soldiers’ injuries. “But there’s not a one of us who doesn’t feel greatly more blessed than any we’ve given.”

An added bonus is that at least a few of the families each time accept an invitation to church the next Sunday.

A second team ministers to the soldiers and their families at Fisher House, a residential facility at Lackland Air Force Base. Families there usually are not casualties of war, but have illnesses that demand long-term care at Wilford Hall Medical Center.

Jim and Nita Peck lead a team that also serves a meal to up to 29 people staying at that facility. Peck agreed interaction is the key ingredient in the ministry.

“After we serve the meal, we get to sit and listen to their problems, and then we get to pray with and encourage them,” Peck said.

The facility seems to serve primarily very young families and older retired Air Force veterans, he noted. The variety in ailments he has encountered includes children and infants with leukemia, a mother who was hoping her leaking amniotic fluid would last long enough for her baby to form completely, and older people with a variety of cancers.

While not war casualties, their needs are as great, Peck said.

“We see a lot of young people who are in dire straits,” he said. “We don’t think much of military people struggling with this sort of thing—more of them getting shot up and stuff—but they go through these same trials that everyone else does. But most of these are young people who are away from home and family, so they only support and encouragement they get comes from places like Fisher House.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

2nd Opinion:
Leave judgment in the parking lot

By Robert Tucker

The challenge of a classically trained musician to adapt to new worship styles without abandoning the old was both daunting and rewarding. My commitment to providing the finest in worship experiences led me to a crossroads in my musical journey. The desire to incorporate and become a part of the emerging church in a praise-and-worship setting meant that I needed to know something about it and to learn how to become a part of it. The old adage “if you can’t beat them, join them” has never been more true than in my case of trying to become a part of the praise-and-worship team—“team” in the broad sense of the term.

Specifically, our church had a team—a small group that included a few singers, a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player, and a pianist and organist. Perhaps out of default or due to my jazz background on the piano, suddenly it became my duty and obligation to provide leadership at the keyboard. I met this requirement with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Probably similar to a skydiver on his first dive or in my case a solo French horn player in an orchestra, I was confident of my basic skills but completely at a loss on how to use them. Can I fit in and learn this new system, and am I capable? Will I enhance the worship experience for the people, or will I ruin it? Is this good for the church?

As I played and sought to fit in with the team, I noticed the response of the people was not negative or bored but rather was worshipful and meaningful. In addition, the sounds emanating from the guitar were intriguing due to the added tones used for harmonic color and musical interest. Furthermore, the rhythm was multi-dimensioned, with a syncopated complexity that almost defied notation. The music was engaging, creative, spontaneous and emotionally charged.

In other words, my entire training and musical thought processing were altered, and I began to rethink some things.

Worship is not about musical rules or even musical or harmonic expectations. It is simply about expression and responses to expression and emotion. We, the trained and the untrained musicians, have a responsibility to provide worship experiences that may or may not be within the established academic framework of music. It is difficult, however, for those of us in academia to divorce the “rules” from the experience. For the academically trained musician, the experience is directly proportionate to the rules set forth according to history. To break the rules is to experience substandard quality in sound. It becomes unfathomable to a trained musician how the music with its substandard theoretical basis can be a satisfying experience.

From literature to art museums to movies, we respond individually to the artistic experience. When you add God to the equation, it becomes difficult, perhaps impossible, to predict emotional response. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the leaders to decipher prayerfully yet comprehensively what in fact is best for a congregation, and furthermore to commit himself to providing the finest worshipful experience possible and to reach a large amount of people. This experience may and should include hymns, choruses, choirs, solos, praise teams, instrumental ensembles, guitars, organs, pianos, drums and percussions, orchestral instruments and handbells. The list is limited only by human imagination. At the same time, we should honor God by worshipping with quality, responsibility and heart.

We live in a world of eclecticism that extends to the church and to worship. No longer is it wise or even fair to categorize yourself myopically as a modernist who only likes choruses or a traditionalist who only likes hymns. Instead, I urge you—the trained musician, the academician, the music lover, the congregation member, the deacon, the pastor, the layman, the old and the young—to categorize yourself as a Christian who chooses to worship corporately and individually without inhibiting the worship of other people. Lay your judgment, your prejudices and your selfishness down in the parking lot before you enter the house of worship. Allow God’s spirit to move within you, using whatever music is presented that day. You will find your experience to be both godly and satisfying. Most importantly, your accepting spirit may indeed find fruition in reaching someone else.

“Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music to the Lord in your heart” (Ephesians 5:19).

Robert Tucker is the dean of music, fine arts and extended education at Howard Payne University in Brownwood.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 5/25/07

When it comes to counting church
members, the devil’s in the details

By Amy Green

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The Southern Baptist Convention, with about 16.2 million members on the books, claims to be the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But Tom Ascol believes the active membership really is a fraction of that.

Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Fla., points to a church report showing that only 6 million Southern Baptists attend church on an average Sunday.

“The reality is, the FBI couldn’t find half of those (members) if they had to,” he said.

Ascol plans to bring a resolution to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in San Antonio, calling for “integrity in the way we regard our membership rolls in our churches and also in the way we report statistics.”

For religious organizations, membership figures are a lot like a position on the annual list of best colleges. A rise is trumpeted as a sign of vitality, strength and clout. And a drop probably means somebody somewhere checked the wrong box on some unimportant survey.

Vast differences in theology and accounting practices make it nearly impossible to know how many members a church body really has, whether active or occasional worshippers. That, in turn, makes side-by-side comparisons nearly impossible.

“Church membership is not as straightforward as it seems,” said Eileen Lindner, associate general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

Lindner, a Presbyterian, produces the NCC’s annual Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches, widely seen as an authoritative source for church membership statistics. But even she knows there are limits.

Here’s a quick look at some of the challenges that go into collecting church membership statistics:

• Self-reporting.

Numbers are only as reliable as the church officials who collect them.

“For some, very careful counts are made of members,” the 2007 Yearbook says. “Other groups only make estimates.”

For example, the National Baptist Convention of America Inc., a historically black denomination, has reported a steady 3.5 million members since 2000—no additions, no deletions. The National Missionary Baptist Convention’s numbers have been frozen at 2.5 million since 1992.

Dale Jones, chairman of the 2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Study, which draws from 149 religious groups, said statisticians are wary of membership numbers ending in several zeros, though he declined to cite examples.

• Theology.

Often a church’s understanding of membership—how it is started, how it is maintained and how it can be revoked—influences counts.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), with 13 million members worldwide, often is reported to be one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. Mormons start enrolling children as members through baptism at age 8.

Members stay on the rolls—even if they move to another church—unless they ask to be removed or are excommunicated.

“Baptism is a sacred covenant. We believe it has eternal consequences,” spokeswoman Kim Farah said. “Baptism is a very sacred thing, and it’s a very personal thing, and far be it for us to take someone off the church membership except if they have asked.”

Ascol takes issue with some churches that enroll people after they answer an altar call and commit themselves to following Jesus. He says it’s a superficial means of joining the church and requires no real commitment. Even after those members disappear, the denomination counts them, he said.

• Active membership.

Roman Catholics, the largest U.S. church with a reported 69 million members, start counting baptized infants as members and often don’t remove people until they die. Most membership surveys don’t actually count who’s in the pews on Sunday.

To be disenrolled, Catholics must write a bishop to ask that their baptisms be revoked, said Mary Gautier, senior research associate for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University.

That means it is possible, for example, to be born Catholic, married Methodist, die Lutheran and still be listed as a member of the 1 billion-member Roman Catholic Church.

“The Catholic understanding of membership is that a person becomes a member upon baptism and remains a member for life,” Gautier said. “Whether you show up at church or not is not what determines whether you’re a member.”

• Institutional honesty.

Mainline Protestant churches—Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and others—are roundly criticized for hemorrhaging members for 40 years. And while membership has surely dropped, mainline churches often are the first to cleanse their rolls of the inactive to produce a more accurate figure.

The 15-million-member Seventh-day Adventists, for example, saw their U.S. numbers drop in recent years in part because a church audit found duplicates on membership rolls, said Kathleen Jones, an assistant for general statistics for the denomination. Those duplicates are being purged.

Often, new pastors want up-to-date numbers because they don’t want to be blamed for any drops, said Lindner of the NCC. And some denominations assess fees to congregations based on membership, so the smaller the numbers, the smaller the fees.

• Survey guilt.

When asked about voting habits, belief in God or their feelings toward race or gender, Americans are notorious for answering what they think pollsters want to hear. Church demographers say the same rings true for church attendance.

Some studies show more Americans consider themselves Southern Baptist than are accounted for by the denomination’s own numbers, said Roger Finke, director of the Association of Religion Data Archives at Penn State.

The same is true of Catholics and Presbyterians, Finke said. And while an estimated 53 percent of Americans consider themselves Protestant, surveys of denominational membership find only 35 percent of the general population are members of a local congregation.

“Many people who are not members of a local church still view themselves as being Protestant, Catholic or some other religion, even though they’re not actively involved in a church,” Finke said.

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