An excellent set of questions that might shape a thorough-going review of one’s chaplaincy work, especially if carried out in collaboration with interested and relevant parties from both the university and the church, is provided by McGrail & Sullivan, Dancing on the Edge? (2007, pp.269-271). What is offered below is simply a summary of their prose text for ease of reference.
- Who does the university chaplain belong to? How important is a sense of belonging? Is a liminal status an inevitable part of one’s calling, even a source of grace?
- What is the relationship with the university authorities? Do they promote, permit or prevent the work?
- What is the relationship with the wider church? Is one ignored or supported, encouraged or constrained?
- What are the main priorities of the chaplaincy in the ‘explicit curriculum’ (advertised and public), in the ‘hidden curriculum’ (implicit messages and modes of action) and in the ‘null curriculum’ (things omitted, ignored or undone)?
- What are the major sources of satisfaction and the major challenges?
- How are chaplains prepared for their role: appointed; supported; evaluated?
- What training or consciousness-raising is required for managers in respect of chaplains?
- Where do chaplains sit in the flow of information (for both university and church)?
- What do chaplains need to know more about (e.g. students, other support staff, academics, senior managers, other world faiths)?
- Why should chaplains be listened to (what is their “personal credibility, authority and leverage” (p.270))?
- What is the purpose of chaplains (e.g. to make disciples, to help people cope and grow, to demonstrate the consonance of faith and reason, to be a moral compass, to promote communication between church and university, to promote ‘community cohesion’, to retain students, to interrelate the Christian narrative and university narrative)?
- What model of church does the chaplaincy employ?
- What are the enemies and obstacles of best functioning (e.g: material, spiritual, personal, institutional; fundamentalism, liberalism, apathy, relativism, rationalism; embarrassing forms of evangelism; lack of credibility of the church; lack of conditions for genuine community)?
- How does one remain faithful to one’s tradition, yet make it accessible though experiment and risk-taking?
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