Think of a piece of taffy and what happens when you keep pulling on it and stretching it to its’ limits; it eventually breaks. Many of our Chaplain Corps members who are assigned at the Wing/Region level have multiple duty positions outside the Chaplain Corps. For some of our members, having too many jobs has caused their focus to shift from serving the needs of our Cadets, Adult Members and the Chaplain Corps. Some have put their priority on what Wing/Region Commanders are expecting of them and their needs, sadly leaving nothing left of themselves to serve the needs of the Chaplain Corps, its missions, tasks, training events, cadet special activities and providing ministry of presence to all Civil Air Patrol members. Unfortunately, this approach to volunteering in CAP has led far too often to burn-out, key tasks not being accomplished in a timely manner or not being done at all, especially key cadet training activities not being adequately covered. This approach to volunteer service has left many of our Corps members being overworked and feeling overwhelmed. This has caused some of our members to leave the Chaplain Corps to work in other areas within CAP that are less demanding.
We want all our Chaplain Corps members to excel both personally and professionally and to take your Chaplain Corps careers as far as you wish to go within the Civil Air Patrol. With that said, If you have read CAPR 80-1 and CAPP 40-80, you already know you could volunteer all your free time to the Chaplain Corps and still not have time enough to be actively involved in all the missions, cadet special activities. training events, our mentoring program, providing ministry and comfort care. You would still not get it all done.
For those Chaplain Corps members working at the Wing/Region level, I would ask you to do an honest, self-assessment of your volunteer service. Ask yourself, are all the Chaplain Corps members under my guidance and direction being served to the fullest of my capabilities? Or are they left to fend for themselves because of my inability to function at 100%? You cannot be assigned three, four or five duty positions at the Wing/Region level and expect to serve the Chaplain Corps and its’ members under your direction with excellence. It’s humanly impossible, keeping in mind, the more you start deducting from 100%, the less amount remains.
Please don’t misunderstand where your Chief of Chaplains office is coming from. We want you to volunteer to serve; however, we want you to be mindful that your first priority should be the needs of the Chaplain Corps. We are the service providers to the rest of CAP. We are the ones our Commanders call when they are in a time of need.
As a member of the Chief of Chaplains staff, we want to see all areas within the Chaplain Corps covered and served with engaging, results-driven, committed members. I believe we have the best Corps in Civil Air Patrol. The only way we can get others to believe in that concept to is to show our CAP members who we are through our actions and our Servant Hearts.
God Bless you for all you do and for your continued assistance and support.
