Hey fellow Army Reserve Chaplain Candidates, check your AKO email. You’re not IRR anymore…
Civilian translation:
Previously, Army Reserve Chaplain Candidates did not get to drill one weekend a month or do two weeks of annual training. They were in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). We’re being transfered to the Select Reserve. Which means we’re going to be active members of the Army Reserve… we get to drill and we get paid for it.
Don’t worry, Mom. We’re still not deployable.
Oops!
The top Army Chaplain upset a lot of people when he called for a fast on the first night of Passover. [That means he called for soldiers to pray and not eat on a religious holiday when Jewish soliders eat a lot.] Read about it at Baptiststandard.com.
Maybe he should have used this interfaith calendar.
An online search reveals a lot of unhappy people. Some just don’t like Christians, evangelicals, Southern Baptists or chaplains in general. Others have legitimate complaints and show genuine concern for Jewish soldiers and chaplains. Some news articles call it inadvertent, others call the Army Chief of Chaplains ignorant. What do you think?
I wholeheartedly disagree with the personal attacks directed toward Chaplain Carver. He’s a great guy who loves soldiers. That’s why he called for the fast. Soldiers keep killing themselves! That’s something serious to pray about. However, scheduling the fast on April 8 was a careless mistake. Ch Carver or someone in his office should have caught that.
Some articles say CH Carver put the fast on the 8th because that’s a Wednesday and Baptists tend to have prayer meetings on Wednesdays. That’s understandable. It was a natural choice for him. It’s easy for each of us to default to our own traditions. It’s easy to forget something as simple as checking a calendar or asking for input from people of different faiths. There are so many different religious holy days we’ve never heard of. [Passover isn't one of those though.]
As a civilian minister or seminarian, you might not need to know the practices and beliefs of other religions. Things are different in the Army. As a special staff officer one of the chaplain’s jobs is to offer the commander professional expertise on matters of religion.
Chaplains are THE religion experts. We must have multi-faith situational awareness.
“Situation awareness (SA) involves being aware of what is happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives, both now and in the near future.” – wikipedia
Carleton left this comment:
“The Chief of Chaplains office checked with two senior Jewish chaplains before publishing the voluntary day of praying and fasting for the CHAPLAIN family. This proclamation wasn’t intended for the whole Army. People may also miss the purpose which was to call for divine intervention for the high numbers of Soldiers feeling so hopeless, they are killing themselves in record numbers.”
This Sunday, the AGTS Chaplain Candidates ran a chapel service at Ft. Wood. Some of us led worship, prayed etc. I got to preach in the second service! This was my first time to preach on a Sunday morning and my first time to speak to soldiers.
Most of the soldiers were at Ft. Wood for BCT. (Basic Training) They’re a long way from home and going through some long hard days. I spoke to them about Psalm 139. God sees in the dark, He knows our ways, and He goes with us. Better than that… Jesus is the light, He is the way and He is God with us!
Hooah!
I just got back from a wonderful week in San Antonio.
Here’s a list of some of our speakers at the conference:
They were all awesome!
And of course…. here are some photos:
Chaplain (Major General) Cecil Richardson spoke at Evangel University’s Homecoming banquet on Saturday night. CH Richardson serves as the Air Force Chief of Chaplains. He’s also an Evangel graduate and an awesome speaker. I wish they had his speech available on podcast, I’d definitely link you. Since they don’t, I have to just keep telling all of his hillarious or inspiring stories to anyone that will stand still for long enough.
I got to speak with CH Richardson for a few minutes after the banquet. When he found out I’m an Army Chaplain Candidate he said he had to “coin” me. Awesome! He had his wife get the coin out of her purse. 
He’s a great guy. My fellow Assemblies of God chaplains should be really proud of him. Air Force chaplains are blessed to have him leading them.
