The Call

Fulfill your calling while serving your country.

For over 200 years, military chaplains have accompanied U.S. forces wherever they have served.  Chaplains are ordained by individual religious denominations.  Once commissioned as officers in the Army National Guard, they provide religious worship services, rites, sacraments and ministrations to military members and their families worldwide.  Their mission is to nurture the living, care for the sick or wounded and honor the dead.

Chaplains also assist military personnel and family members in dealing with personal concerns such as faith issues, stress, anxiety, redeployment or reunion issues, moral and ethical values and social concerns.

For many service members, chaplains are the first person outside their chain of command from whom they can receive help.  In this role, chaplains assist in resolving problems by making appropriate referrals to command channels or social service agencies.  They also assist military personnel in requesting emergency leave, compassionate reassignments and hardship discharges.

Joining the Guard Chaplaincy not only satisfies your calling to serve God, but your calling to serve your country as well.  There’s no other faithful community that understands the value of serving others quite like the Army National Guard.  Your service will be invaluable to the Soldiers and their families, as will the experience you can bring back to your civilian ministry.

Chaplains offer a spiritual ministry that spans the globe and helps young men and women be effective Soldiers in body, mind and spirit.  Ministers, priests, rabbis and imams guide Soldiers and their families through life’s triumphs and tragedies.

As a Guard Chaplain, you will have the opportunity to be a preacher, teacher and counselor to Soldiers and their families.  Your counseling can benefit anyone from young children to elderly family members, and your expertise will serve you well on parish and congregational advisory groups.

There are thousands of Guard units located in cities and towns all across the United States, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  When you train in your hometown, you will be carrying on the time-honored tradition of the Guard Citizen-Soldier – like the first Minutemen, ready at a moment’s notice to answer the call.

Sacred

The key values that drive the Army National Guard Chaplaincy are encapsulated in the acronym SACRED:

• Spirituality: Seek to know God and yourself at the deepest level.
• Accountability: Hold yourself and others to the moral and spiritual high ground in every area of life.
• Compassion: Love in word and deed.
• Religious Leadership: Model spiritual truths wisely and courageously.
• Excellence: Do your best for God’s glory.
• Diversity: Respect the differences of others.