Transcript: How Corporate Chaplains Foster a Caring Culture // Larry Griffith, Corporate Chaplains of America

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

How Corporate Chaplains Foster a Caring Culture

January 30, 2022

Larry Griffith

Intro: Is there a place in your organization to consider having a chaplain to help care for your employees? Well, today's conversation introduces the concept and highlights benefits for having a chaplain in your organization.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: The employees who come to work every day in your business don't necessarily leave their personal struggles at home. Many people are stretched and distracted by family issues and other stressors. How do you provide a culture of care in your workplace without becoming overwhelmed by the needs? We found employees feeling cared for is part of creating a flourishing workplace culture. And today's Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast will highlight the importance of the culture of care and how we can meet the personal needs of our employees.

And I'm delighted to welcome Larry Griffith. Larry is the CEO of Corporate Chaplains of America. Larry, it's great to have you on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast.

Larry Griffith: Well, Al, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here today.

Al: Great, Larry.

And let's start off the conversation with this, and that is that most of us are familiar with the chaplains at hospitals. They come alongside patients and families in times of need. But describe, what's this idea about a corporate chaplain? You know, what do they do? What kind of help do they offer to employees in organizations that have a corporate chaplain?

Larry: You know, Al, as you know, chaplains are very common in hospitals, but not only there, you know, chaplains throughout the military and in various sports scenarios. Chaplains are more widespread than we'd imagine. But I think, really, what makes Corporate Chaplains unique is there are business owners and executives and leaders of nonprofits that want to care for their people beyond the medical, dental, and vision benefits that they offer. And so when you think about people's hearts and their minds, what do you really have to provide care for them? And that's what a chaplain does: care for the hearts and minds of employees and their family members.

Al: That’s fantastic. Yeah, care for people.

Well, Larry, before you started doing this, you actually have experience as a naval officer in corporate leadership as well as non-profits, and we did have a chance to work together in a previous life. Are there some keys in your own growth as a leader where you realize the importance of care for people that you lead? You know, how do you become convinced about the importance of a culture of caring in the workplace?

Larry: You know, Al, 37 years, believe it or not, I've been in leadership. And there's one thing that makes certain, and that is that I'm old. But beyond the fact of being old, I think what I've learned is that people don't need a leader who's dominating and who's always right. They need a leader who cares. And when a leader cares for their people, then something magical happens: that team does things it could not do otherwise. And I think the greatest leader of all time, in my mind, is clearly Jesus Christ. And Jesus said if you want to be the greatest, if you really want to be the greatest leader, then you need to care about others. You need to make yourself the least and make other people first. And I think that what I've discovered as a leader, as your employees allow you to care for them, but, you know, Al, in today's day and age, it's quite a bit more difficult for a leader to provide care than it was for me starting as a leader in the 1980s.

Al: You know, Larry, you just make me think about, you know, in many secular workplaces, people want, companies want their employees to leave their problems at home. And the reality is, isn't it? you don't leave your problems at home. And I just love what you say about the greatest leader. And, you know, He really commands us or tells us that the greatest among you will be the one who cares for others. So tell us a story—

Larry: Hey, Al, I’d love to jump on that, leave your problems at home, because when I started my career, it was often said, and if it wasn't said, it was clearly understood, that you should just check your problems at the door and go to work. And in today's day and age, there's a very different principle at work. It's called bring your whole self to work, and that includes your problems. And when I think about the problems in people's lives, again in the late 20th century as compared to today, they're just so much more complex.

So you can just think about this paradigm shift. You know, check your problem at the door, leave them at home. Now bring your whole self to work. And your whole self has a whole lot more problems, at least more complex problems, than they were back when I started my leadership journey. So it really kind of creates an interesting paradigm for leaders.

Al: Yeah.

Well, share with us a story, then, about an instance where you’ve seen a chaplain making a difference for a struggling employee. You know, what difference did having access to a chaplain make for that individual and company?

Larry: Yeah. I'm thinking of a chaplain in Indiana who was caring for a gentleman. And again, all chaplain care is voluntary, where the employee's in complete control. So this employee would just, basically, acknowledge the presence of a chaplain because they would come kind of to the location on a specific day every week so they would know it's time for the chaplain to come. And this employee never really engaged, but they knew, as all employees do, that you can call the chaplain 24/7/365 and they will respond.

So one night at about one in the morning, this employee reaches out to the chaplain, and the chaplain, actually, is quite shocked, but he's glad that the employee reaches out. And the employee says, “Hey, I need you to go to the jail tonight to visit my son.” And the chaplain said, “I'm happy to go. Give me some details. Let me know where your son is. And is there more you would like to tell me?” And the employee said, “Absolutely. The reason I need you to go tonight is, actually, I just called the police and had them take my son away. And I had to because my son, who's an adult, was beating up his mother, who's my wife, and I could not get him off of her. I physically just couldn't stop it, so I had to call the police.” And so obviously the employee was very conflicted, needed to protect his wife, certainly, from domestic abuse, but obviously loves his son, does not want him in jail, but he had to be incarcerated. So the chaplain, by the time he gets to the jail and actually is able to get in front of the young man, it's about 3 a.m.

And they make an agreement that when he is released on bond, that they're going to connect. And so the employee does connect with him and—the employee’s son—and says he wants to meet him at super Walmart. And so, again, the employee’s in control, and this is the employee’s son in this case. And they walk around super Walmart for, like, two hours. And the employee is just talking to him about—the employee’s son—just talking to him about all these things in his life and anger management and how horrible he feels, just what he would do that to his own mother, but at the same time, how his mother and other people do things that he can't manage; he can't control. And that really began a relationship where he was able to really care for this young man and ultimately provide care not only to the young man, but for the young man, the mother, and the father, and even do family care and really helping them rebuild their relationships.

Al: Wow. Yeah. And you talk about you can't leave those kinds of issues at work, and to have that access to a chaplain to handle that difficult situation and to bring healing, isn't it? That’s a great story, Larry. Thanks. Wow.

Well, you know, as Best Christian Workplaces does research on employee engagement, we include this question about care offered to employees, and one of the key areas we find in flourishing workplaces is when employees answer the question, my supervisor cares about me as a person. I mean, we found that to be a key, and that's one of our highest-scoring questions on our 50-plus-question survey that we offer. So in companies with a chaplain, some of this care and compassion is being handled by the chaplain rather than the manager. So does this relieve managers and supervisors of the need to provide care support for a staff member? How does having a workplace chaplain create a culture of care in an organization without getting in between that manager-employee relationship?

Larry: That's a very insightful question. And when we think about care, it should never be viewed as an either/or. And I think that it is vital that supervisors care for their employees, managers care for their employees. I'm not surprised at all; it would probably be the leading indicator from the Best Christian Workplace Institute Survey as far as having a flourishing culture. And when we think about, again, people's lives today are just increasingly complex. Even if you go before the pandemic, from 2019 to today, the things that people are dealing with, it's almost like they're moving at some exponential rate or warp speed to complexity. So I need to care for the people who are reporting to me, who are on my team, and that's table stakes.

But the question is, am I equipped to care for them? Well, I am at some level with certain things, obviously, but here's some examples. You know, the amount of addictions in people's lives today, and those addictions cover a really wide spectrum of things. Those addictions certainly can be alcohol related and drugs and pornography and related other things, but those addictions can really become complex and actually can be a great source of shame, where employees don't necessarily want to expose that to their manager, where they're concerned how it could impact their performance reviews or even their future career. And to see them actually kind of in the mental-health side of the equation, where people want to be perceived as successful and strong and high potential in the workplace. And oftentimes they are. And just because people struggle with some things does not mean that they're not high potential or don't have a bright future. So that's kind of from the employee side.

But then, from the caregiver side—you know, supervisors, managers, and even human resources—they’re skilled, and they’re trained, and their expertise in certain areas, but certainly not in some of the deep, dark crevices that people find themselves in their personal lives.

And so oftentimes, you know, the path to perdition is paved with good intentions. So you might have a direct supervisor or even an HR leader with great intentions to care, but they're just ill equipped. And so I think it's, again, it's not an “or” but it's an “and.” I think a caring supervisor, a caring manager, a caring culture, a caring HR professional, an HR leader, coupled with a chaplain who's trained and equipped in a very special, unique way to kind of serve as kind of God's special forces or God's emergency responders to deal with things in people's lives that are super difficult and complex and at the same time ensuring that everything an employee tells a chaplain is 100% confidential unless they're going to hurt themselves or hurt someone else. Because if I disclosed something to you as my boss or to HR, it's just really difficult to kind of bifurcate that in your mind. But when you're speaking to a chaplain, you're always in a safe space. And I think that's step one in today's day and age to really provide exceptional care that can lead to healing and wholeness.

Al: And it's so much better than an online, like, EAP program. I'm sure you're familiar with those programs. And a lot of larger companies have made those available. But to have a chaplain onsite certainly is a step better than that. Absolutely. Wow.

And, again, your point, Larry, I really appreciated is having a confidential resource, a caring confidential resource, won’t report back to a line manager or supervisor, even HR, is a tremendous resource available. Yeah.

So, corporate chaplains are serving in secular workplaces, as we've talked about, such as factories and offices. I know that's a large part of the work that you and your team do. But they're interfacing with people of all kinds of faith backgrounds and people who have, you know, no particular faith, in some cases. So how do chaplains come alongside people that don't have a faith basis? Is that an issue or a problem? How do companies make sure that they're providing fair access for all of their employees and not favoring, you know, any particular religious affiliation, for example?

Larry: Yeah. Kind of in our practices, we find, gosh, I think of a manufacturing plant in Michigan, where a large constituency of the employees is Muslim, and they love their corporate chaplain. And I can think of another business we serve in South Carolina, where a large constituency of their employees is Buddhist, and they love the chaplain. So it's like, well, how do they love the chaplain, because we're not universalists? Our chaplains are committed Christians, but we really believe that our faith is grounded in the imago dei, or the fact that every human being is created in the image of God and is worthy of respect, regardless of their beliefs, their ideologies, their expressed faith, their orientation, anything. Like, we just believe that people are valuable because they breathe and they're created in the image of God. So we just love people and meet them right where they are. It's not our objective to change people; it's our objective to care for them. And then, we let that relationship just kind of take life, and we see amazing things happen. And it really is we introduce them to God at their time and their pace.

Actually, Al, I’d love to tell you story, if I could, about an agnostic employee that we serve. And as you know, the nones, as they're called—and that's not Catholic ladies that wear habits—these are the N-O-N-E-S, the nones, people that have no religious affiliation, are growing to become, at some point, probably the largest group in America. And there is a company in Virginia that we serve, and an employee actually happened to be a leader, one of the leaders at this location, kind of hit it off with the chaplain. But he said, like, “Look, I know that you're a chaplain, and that kind of infers some religious connotation. And I'm happy to get to know you. I'm happy to even use your services, use your expertise, with one rule: everything spiritual related, it’s a faith-based religion, it's all off limits. We're never going to talk about it, ever.” And the chaplain said, “Well, absolutely,” because again, the employee’s in total control. The employee’s in charge. So that was the rule the employee put in place.

And for five years—because our chaplains are around for the long haul. There's different chaplaincy services. And we found that if a chaplain is like a turnstile, where they're kind of coming and going, it really makes it difficult to provide care if a chaplain is not going to be there for the long haul—and so this chaplain was there five years, and they built this great relationship, and he gave them many opportunities. The employee gave him many opportunities to provide counsel and care around relationships in his life, around his marriage, around just he would care for his own employees. And it was really a rich relationship.

And this leader, who is, I believe, in his forties, in good health, had a shocking cancer diagnosis. And he really wasn’t going through all the maintenance because he felt he was still young and in good shape, and he was in a late stage of cancer. Well, that suddenly changed the employee's mind to think about spiritual things. And so he said to the chaplain, he goes, “I know I set these ground rules. You've abided by them perfectly for five years. But I just came down with a stage-four cancer diagnosis, and I would love to hear your views on eternity and God because I don't have any insights into such things.” And so with full permission, the employee began to share his relationship with Jesus Christ and really how that's made all the difference for him. And actually, that was the source by which he could love and care for him with such excellence over the last five years. Well, the employee prayed to receive Christ, and it really changed that employee’s heart and his mind, which is what God does.

I love the Scripture where Jesus says that He doesn't worry about the outside of the cup, but He comes in and cleans the inside of the cup, and then kind of the outside takes care of itself. God just accepts people. It's the old Billy Graham hymn would say, just as I am without one plea, we don't have to change anything about ourselves other than accept Christ. And so that's what that employee did.

He died some months later, and his widow came to the chaplain and said, like, “Look, I know you've been close to my husband for years, and I know something happened in my husband's life over the past few months before he passed. And I know that you had something to do with it. So we have no faith moorings in our family whatsoever, so we would like you to do the funeral, and we would like the funeral to center on what changed in her husband’s life, because we all saw it. He was like a different person. And the last couple months we had with him were the best days of our entire life together.” So the chaplain shared that story at the funeral, and at that funeral, 36 people prayed to receive Christ.

Al: Wow. Yeah. Yeah, the value of a chaplain in the workplace. Yeah, wow.

Well, you know, Larry, you've talked about how chaplains can support employees when they're going through personal struggles. I mean, this story is a perfect example. And these struggles may be related to issues outside of the work, like their own personal health. Do you also see a role of a chaplain in helping people address issues in the workplace, when there are conflicts or disagreements? I imagine that that might occur. What about broken relationships between even supervisors and employees? Can chaplains help in these kinds of difficult situations?

Larry: They really can. You know, we love data, and so while everything is confidential that you say to a chaplain, we capture every time we make a connection with them, with the employee, every time we provide care, and then the categories of care. And I think you would see in many companies in the top ten, if not top five, of care-session categories would be work. And there can be many things that would lead an employee to want to have a care session with a chaplain around work. Oftentimes, it could be because of the number of hours somebody is needing to work, as there's been this labor shortage. It could be because of the environment. You know, some workplaces, as you well know, are toxic. And that can be, perhaps, the coworkers, because, again, with a labor shortage, some companies pay to hire people that, perhaps, ten years ago they never would have hired, and that's created problems for them. Oftentimes, it could be a front-line supervisor who is a great individual contributor and got promoted, perhaps, because of lack of other options, and they're really not equipped to lead, or they're leading with a stick, a negative way.

And so we really hold all of that confidential, and so we don't run back and give those details to the company. But the company is able to see on a monthly basis kind of all of this data, big picture. So it's almost like putting your finger on the pulse of the company, like what's going on. And when you see it—actually, I was just, last week, at a company with their leadership, and the second-highest care-session category was work. And so they asked, they said, “Tell us about that. Like, what's going on?” And so we were able to speak in generalities but give them enough insight into things that they could do to set the tone from the top as owners and leaders of a company to really make a difference and just have some insight as to thinking about, how do they make their workplace a flourishing workplace?

Al: I love it. Well, Larry, it just piques the question: what are some of those categories, then, that kind of are your top-five issues that your chaplains face in the workplace?

Larry: Well, it certainly varies by company, but there are some common themes. I would say that typically number one is relationships. And certainly, that can include someone's significant other or their spouse.

A subset of that, which there's really two subsets that are becoming super common beyond your significant other, and that would be dealing with teenagers. I really think parenting teenagers has been challenging probably from since Cain and Abel, but I think in the 21st century and just the plethora of technology and social media and just the way it's impacted our mental health as a culture, it’s just gotten so much more difficult for parents to understand how to wrangle that as you're trying to help your teenager become a young adult and reach independence. But it can just really be a difficult relationship. So there's a lot of time there.

And another category that's been skyrocketing is dealing with aging parents, particularly around Alzheimer's and dementia. You know, as medical science has just continued to progress in our country and people's life spans are extending, we're just seeing more and more people, perhaps, who are not aging well at a certain point, and it can be really difficult for aging parents.

And so those are some of the top areas that we're seeing right now. I think beyond relationships, Al, I think workplace anxiety and depression are two other top categories that we're dealing with quite a bit. And as I mentioned earlier, addictions. And addictions can be a gamut of issues. But I think those would typically be the top things that we see in a given company.

Al: Yeah. That's a great list, Larry. Thanks. That's very insightful.

I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: And now back to today’s special guest.

So how does care for employees influence other aspects of the company? You know, thinking, now let’s kind of move it up to a company level. We've been talking at a personal frontline supervisor. But from a company standpoint, how does having a chaplain make a better customer experience or maybe even impact profitability? I’m sure you get that question from your for-profit companies. “So, okay, what’s my return on investment here? Is there a bottom-line impact of the culture and care that a chaplain brings to an organization?” What's your response to that?

Larry: Well, I think you've seen over the years, with all the work that you've done, that a flourishing culture definitely has a very pragmatic return on investment. And sometimes because these things are difficult to track because there's so many intersections, there's just so many overlapping things, that people just tend to move away from it. But what we've seen in actually working with some of our clients, we've actually been able to put some tangible things down on paper to say it definitely far exceeds the cost of the program.

So, some of the areas that we see significant benefit is, some of the obvious ones, Al, reducing employee turnover. You know, when you think about the amount of time and money it takes to vet, recruit, hire, and train an employee, that expense can be astronomical. And then based on the scarcity of the talent you're looking for or the nuances of the position can be even so much more expensive. And so by really helping reduce employee turnover. So that would be one key area.

And I'd like to come back and tell you a story about employee turnover before I move away from your question. I think there are employees who do not turn over, but unfortunately, they've kind of resigned on the job or like we used to say, being retired on active duty. And sometimes those are more detrimental than the people who ultimately leave.

And then you've got passive aggressiveness in the workplace, where people say one thing to your face and do another behind your back, and actually use words to kind of get in the crossfire, unfortunately, of poorly performing teams. And so I think by helping people, number one, kind of receive healing and wholeness for the problems they’re dealing with, that then kind of enables them to actually care for other people even when other people, perhaps, aren't the best or when other people even hurt them. And it enables them to do things like forgive, which is such an easy word to say but such a hard thing for people to do.

And I think as people are healthy themselves and they can extend grace and kindness and even forgiveness to their coworkers, we've seen companies actually do a 180, where they almost have, like, a magical sense to them, and the customers can feel it. It's palpable. And it really leads to great teamwork internally with internal customers and great service to external customers, which just grows the top line and the bottom line of companies. And it's just really a lot of fun to sit back and witness that.

Al: Yeah. Well, yeah. I love that you’re basically saying healing that comes through care of a chaplain helps in the relationships with other people. And gosh, when you start to have that build on top of each other, you have really positive outcomes, no question about it. Yeah.

So, Larry, let's go back to employee turnover. Well, tell me a story.

Larry: Well, you know, we serve some companies that have extreme employee turnover, and these would be blue-collar settings, where they might turn over 50, 60, 70% or more of their employees, like really within the first 90 days, and maybe it's due to the nature of their work. But if the employees can kind of get through that, you know, whether it be 90 days or 120 days or something the first 180 days, if they get through that mile marker, then they tend to stay because the pay is good. They're paying a premium because the work is difficult, and so they can establish kind of the habits and the patterns. Then they can make it and actually be a long-term employee. It's just a matter of helping them get through it. So we partner with companies all the time on and really providing extra special care to those employees at that integral part, where employee turnover and failure is quite common. And we've seen, and we've been able to measure it and companies have been able to measure it through pilot programs that we've done, how we've really reduced turnover in that key segment of time, which is then led downstream to them having long term, successful, and quite frankly, highly engaged and very happy employees. And that's just been, talk about turning a company's culture and then turning their P&L statement, it’s really been amazing. It's been quite satisfying, Al, to sit back and watch that and to see the difference it's made in a company’s culture and again in their business.

Al: Well, we all know, Larry, and we've seen a lot of research, that it's those first impressions in those early days in a new situation that really makes a lasting impression. And wow, so having a corporate chaplain, actually, you know, really helps provide care in those early days, especially in difficult jobs. And partnering with a chaplain, I can see where that would provide a tremendous return on investment. That's fantastic.

So, you know, your people have a pulse—and we've talked about this a little bit already, but maybe there's a couple of additional things—your people have a pulse on the needs of workers in our society. What trends are you seeing in the workplace today? Is there important information, not just for business leaders but also leaders and churches and non-profits, that you might be able to share with us to help understand the stress that people face in our culture but as they begin to and try to serve their people? So your chaplains are on the front line. They're hearing and seeing the stresses and concerns of employees. What are people struggling with? You've mentioned others. Is there anything else that comes to mind?

Larry: Well, I’d like to circle back to something I mentioned just in passing, and that would be anxiety, depression, and one I did not mention, which would be suicide ideation. You know, we avert more than 1,000 suicides a year, Al. And I think it was not that way when we were founded in 1996. It was more of a rare thing. And it's serious business. And a lot of people are dealing with a lot of things in their lives, and they've really hidden so many things. And I think so often there are employees who are viewed by their coworkers as extroverts and gregarious and just optimistic, but inside they are just hurting, and you never would guess it in your wildest dreams. And oftentimes they're your most successful employees. And unfortunately, it literally is that burning the candle at both ends. And at some point, there comes a breaking point where just something goes dreadfully wrong. And it's wonderful that chaplains can come in and care for people in a completely confidential way and that they're equipped.

In fact, Al, we had to add—all of our chaplains here, we hire people with 7 to 10 years of workplace experience on top of their education, on top of any ministry experience. So they understand what's it like to go to work with a supervisor and have expectations in the workplace. But beyond that, we provide a lot of training. We have a world-class LMS. We hired a West Point grad, who's our vice president of learning, who just poured himself into this and has a great team of people.

But we also found that we needed to have specific-subject-matter experts within CCA. And these are not for the employees that we care for, but these are for our chaplains. And so we have a subject-matter expert on anxiety. So whenever I'm a chaplain, and let's say I'm the chaplain, and, Al, you're the employee, and you're really struggling. And maybe your case, it's a little bit over my pay grade. I can go to a subject-matter expert who even goes deeper, and that can help me and, again, kind of resource me so I can care for you. But again, your relationship is still with me. So it’s not like I’m passing you off or referring you to another doctor. You're still dealing with me. And it is so important because you've become vulnerable with me, and you trust me. But then I'm the subject-matter expert providing this care kind of as a practitioner, as a chaplain themselves caring, but they just have deep knowledge in this one area. And then I'm transferring knowledge so that I'm growing as well as a chaplain.

So that's really worked for us in, really, in these significant areas where we're just seeing there's more and more brokenness and darkness in people's lives than we've ever witnessed in our 27th year of being a ministry.

Al: Yeah. A thousand suicides per year averted as a result of your work at Corporate Chaplains. That’s just fantastic. Yeah.

Well, Larry, we learned so much from our conversation today. This has just really been a rich, deep conversation. I appreciate it so much.

You know, starting back with the fact that business owners do, good ones, want to care for their people and that, of course, we've got a model for that. And Jesus, who teaches us to care for others. That, again, you know, you're serving workplaces with people of all types of faith and how that is really something that you respect and that people are made in the image of God. And yet the stories of how, because of the relationships that your chaplains build over time, how that has really impacted people. You know, as I talk with our ministry partners, you know, the issues in the workplace, you know, of just the difficulties with the work itself, the extra hours, you know, this post-pandemic workplace experience that, yes, our employees are having difficult relationships with their spouses, with teenagers, with aging parents. I mean, the issues that come with that. What a great service to have a chaplain to help employees work through those issues. And yes, a return on investment, with lower turnover and how you can really team with employers in difficult, high-turnover types of jobs to really have a long-term impact.

And one more question I've got for you, Larry, as we think about this, and then I'm going to ask you to add something that's on your heart, as has come out from our conversation, but we work with not only Christian-owned businesses, but we also work with a lot of Christian nonprofits and churches. And while we haven't seen, I haven't seen, many organizations, many Christian nonprofits or churches really think about chaplains, what's your thought on that? Is that a place where chaplains could be a benefit?

Larry: Well, there's no doubt about that, Al. I appreciate you raising the question. I think this is a difficult time to lead in any setting. But I think specifically in a Christian nonprofit, I think there's a lot of pressure and, quite frankly, spiritual warfare. So you think about, you know, some of the headline falls from grace that have taken places in various churches and ministries and how they could have been averted, by people that were just shocking to all of us, some of the people who were even heroes of the faith to us, as I’m recalling them in my mind. But a chaplain is somebody that they could have opened up to, and they could have shared this struggle they had, perhaps an addiction. And it would have been confidential, again, unless you're hurting yourself or someone else. And they really could have come into the light.

I love the verse in 1 John, that if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we're going to have fellowship. And right before that verse, in 1 John, chapter one, talks about that if we say we have no sin in us that we're liars. Because I think it's the one thing all of us, we all fail; we all fall short; we all sin. And I think having a safe place where you can talk to somebody who won't judge you but will love you and care for you and help you to come into the light. Because people run into problems, I think particularly in churches and ministry, when they hide, because there's a lot of evil and a lot of dysfunctional behavior breeds in the darkness. And chaplaincy is a safe place to come into the light.

Al: That's a great point. Yeah.

Larry, how about one more thing that's come to mind before we finish our conversation? Anything else?

Larry: Well, Al, just thinking about your audience and knowing that it's a lot of great folks in churches, it's a lot of great people in Christian nonprofits, you know, I love Matthew, chapter 25. And Matthew, chapter 25 has two parables and then a story which is not a parable. And it starts out with the parable of the ten virgins. And I think the point of that story is that we just need to be living in preparation. In John 9:4, Jesus says that we need to do the works of Him who sent us while it's daylight because night is coming when no one can work. And I don't know about you, but when I look at our culture and our world, I just see a lot of dark shadows being cast. So I think we need to make hay while the sun shines.

And I want to encourage everyone out there. And whatever you're called, to do it with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to really love others as you love yourself. I think that second parable, or the last parable, in Matthew 25 is the parable of the talents, and how are we stewarding our influence? And I think as a leader or as an owner of a business or the leader of a church or nonprofit, we have an opportunity to really care for our people. And I think Corporate Chaplains provides a platform to care for your people in ways, quite honestly, that you can't and you're really not equipped to care for them.

And there is a financial model here. But I am committed as the leader of Corporate Chaplains that anyone that wants to care for their people, we're going to figure it out. We're not going to ever let cost be an impediment, because people are hurting, and it's just the dysfunction is off the charts. So we would love to just think about that with you so that really the only resource in your organization that's eternal is people. And so that you won't be like the one who buried the talent in the ground, but you'll be like the one with the three and the five, who actually doubled what they were given, were a good steward.

And then, finally, it ends with this story, which is not a parable at all, of the sheep and the goats. And it's interesting in that, according to that scripture, how Jesus separates the sheep and the goats. And we all know that we're saved by grace through faith, not through work, so that no one can boast. But that story in Matthew 25, it's all about what people did and didn't do to one another, particularly the least of these. So as we think about those people in our charge that we're responsible for, who are making organizations run, and not only them, but their families—their spouses, their children.

And quite frankly, Al—now, this is something we don't broadcast, but I am about to broadcast it—like, we care for anybody that matters to your employees. So, like, if it's your next-door neighbor maybe that's dying of cancer, if it's your best friend from college that lives across the country, if it's your cousin, if it's your uncle—it's not like your regular benefits where it has to just be your immediate dependents. It's anyone that matters to you. We would love to care for them and really share the love of Jesus with them. And we're able to see people transformed in the workplace. And it's just an amazing thing to see, and we would love to partner with your listeners in that regard.

Al: And how would somebody reach out to Corporate Chaplains, Larry?

Larry: So chaplain.org is the best place to go. And you would see in there, that if you're interested, it’s a very simple form that you can fill out. And we have somebody that would reach out to you. And again, we would tailor a solution to ensure that it's affordable for you and just really want to come alongside and care for all your employees and all the people who matter to them.

Al: Great.

Well, Larry, thanks so much for your contributions today. And most of all, in our conversation, it's just really clear that you have a commitment to creating a culture of care to meet the needs of people in the workplaces across the country. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners. Thanks, Larry.

Larry: Thank you, Al. Thanks for having me.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.