According to an article appearing recently in The Wall Street Journal, a growing number of companies are offering the services of chaplains in the workplace. For example, Tyson Foods Inc., which has a work force of 117,000, employs 120 chaplains. Lindy Capper, a senior compensation analyst for Tyson, said a chaplain stayed with her in the hospital while her son had surgery, then comforted her after her son's death. The chaplains "have faith and they pray with me, and I just love that about them," said Capper. "If I couldn't share my faith, I couldn't bring my whole self to work."
Marketplace Chaplains USA, a nonprofit organization in Plano, Texas, provides 2,455 chaplains for 425 companies. Another organization, Corporate Chaplains of America, offers chaplain care to employees and business owners throughout the United States. Both companies offer such services as confidential care giving, crisis intervention, or providing referrals to social service agencies or employee-assistance programs.
Current estimates by the Houston-based National Institute of Business and Industrial Chaplains put the number of workplace chaplains in U.S. companies at about 4,000.
Click here for more information about Corporate Chaplains of America and Marketplace Chaplains USA.
