ii.‘So what do you do?’

Many of us will have experienced the paralysing, momentary pause that is engendered by the apparently simple question: ‘So, what do you do?’ What is the difficulty? Why can’t chaplains give a simple, obvious and straight-forward answer that immediately satisfies our interlocutor? Part of the problem is one of perspective. Only within a theological frame of reference can a satisfactory account of Chaplaincy be given. But this frame is precisely one that is both open to dispute and no longer readily understood. Even within our Church Foundation institutions we find ourselves as part of “a religious minority with a majority history” (Oliver, 2013, p.56). We hesitate in answering the question put to us, therefore, because we are not sure which language to use. Like a foreign speaker away from home we have to pause as we consider how best to translate our words.

One option in answering is simply to begin with a list of our activities. Such a presentation can elicit a degree of surprise over the breadth and depth of our contribution to the university. Since each chaplain’s set of activities arises as the unique intersection of one’s particular gifts and interests with the specific institutional setting in which one works, no two such lists will be exactly the same. Here then, for indicative purposes, is just such a inventory.

• Pray regularly in, with and for the university.
• Make a point of being visibly present, so as to be both accessible and a conspicuous symbol of an alternative perspective.
• Hold responsibility for leading the life of the chapel with its regular programme of services and events, thus supporting and encouraging the formation of a worshipping community.
• Create liturgies for landmark occasions (e.g. for the installation of a new Vice-Chancellor, or for the celebration of significant institutional anniversaries).
• Offer an Anglican (Christian) pastoral ministry, as a complement to student services provision (apart from other distinctions chaplaincy offers particular flexibility in both time and location, with an ability to make visits beyond the campus to residences, hospitals, detention centres etc.). Such support is extended to individuals, as one-off occasions or over the longer term, and to groups (e.g. a peer group following a death).
• Offer a full set of occasional offices to members of the university: baptisms, marriages, (occasionally) funerals and (more commonly) memorial services. Depending on tradition, confession may also be offered.
• Be recognised as holding a particular expertise in matters of death and sudden crisis.
• Encourage staff and student expression and exploration of Christian faith.
• Bless new buildings and new ventures.
• Create opportunities for public debate concerning issues of belief and unbelief.
• Engage in multiple informal conversations that range from the ‘big’ philosophical issues to everyday concerns.
• Support those of other world faiths and all who wish to explore the transcendent dimension of life.
• Sponsor inter-faith dialogue.
• Encourage the spiritual quest for meaning, purpose and belonging.
• Be an organic participant in the teaching and researching life of the university through both formal and informal means.
• Help promote a sense of community, often via occasions of hospitality.
• Raise consciousness of social and ecological justice.
• Help build connections to the local and wider community.
• Act as an ambassador for the church to the university and vice versa.
• Act as a sign of the Church Foundation character of the university.
• Contribute to the moral conscience for the university.
• Act as representative or mediator on behalf of others as an ‘honest broker’.
• Witness to the Trinitarian presence of God in, with and for the University and hope of the Kingdom of God.