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1. Executive Director's Reflection
2. Pastoral Care: Listening Presence
3. NACC Certification Commission to Meet in Milwaukee October 30-November 1
4. Rev. Baaju Izuchi, CSSp is elected to the NACC Board
5. NACC Office receives applications for Spring certification interview
6. We have been working on the NACC Website
7. Calls to NACC State Liaisons continue
8. For Vision: Seeing God in the everyday
9. SCC Summit 2009 registration now open
10. Participants for dialogue on chaplaincy in nursing homes
11. Please note the many local gatherings in October, November, December!
12. Healing Tree: a request for prayers
13. Recent job postings

No one is unaware of or immune from the global financial crisis that has filled the news the past few weeks. While we all are hesitant (and perhaps wise) to look too closely at our own retirement accounts, we realize the impact of this crisis touches or will touch us and the people we serve in a myriad of ways. Anxiety hangs in the air like a lingering fog. It’s underneath, often implicit in, so many conversations and situations in our ministries. How do we remain a “listening presence” to people, as the theme of Pastoral Care Week highlights? Here are some questions it raises for me:

• In the midst of all that I am doing, even listening as doing, what is or has been happening within me? Am I aware of my own personal and family emotions around the financial crisis? Do I feel helpless? Have I taken steps to become an agent and not a victim in my own life circumstances? What is my level of honesty and humility?
• What does it mean for me to truly live in the here and now, knowing so much of the financial crisis affects the possible future I envisioned? How does this challenge and call me to live the divine today?
• Knowing the joys and hopes, grief and anxieties, of the people of our age are not foreign to a disciple of Jesus, how does this crisis make me even more attentive (even in the midst of my worry) to those that come my way? Is this crisis another source of compassion, as nebulous and unsettling as it can be?
• What unexpected people with special circumstances or special needs might come my way in the coming days because of this crisis? Family? Co-workers? Patients? Strangers? How open do I want to be to be taken off guard and asked to help in ways that take me out of my normal ministry or generosity “comfort zone”, especially when I might already feel stretched emotionally, spiritually, and with my resources?

How does this time affect your own listening presence? I would enjoy hearing from you at dlichter@nacc.org.

As you know, October 20-26, 2008 is Pastoral Care Week. Organizations and institutions of all kinds and types throughout the country are recognizing the spiritual caregivers in their midst and the ministry which the caregivers provide. Thank you to all NACC members for your gift of the healing ministry of Christ to those you serve!

The NACC Certification Commission meets in Milwaukee, October 30-November 1. Click here for a list of Commission members. Their primary work at this meeting will be to review renewal of certification applications and the recommendations from the certification interviews completed the weekend of October 4-5, 2008.

Rev. Baaju Izuchi, CSSp, has been elected to the NACC Board with his three year term beginning January 2009. The Association is so grateful to other candidates, James Castello, Blair Holtey, Rev. Dean Marek, and Marie Polhamus who were willing to serve NACC. For background on Rev. Izuchi, go here.

Fifty applications for the spring 2009 certification interview process have been received by the NACC office before the September 15, 2008 deadline. We are appreciative of all our members who continue to seek professional certification for their ministry. About twenty years ago NACC membership was less than 60 percent certified. Today more than 70 percent of our members are certified.

The NACC website is currently undergoing a bit of renovation – not a redesign, but instead a renovation and restructuring intended to improve the structure of the site and optimize the use of the site as a resource for our members. Although the most obvious change to our main page is the addition of a photo, the important changes are in the area of navigation. There are new quick-links in the header and footer which make the most sought-after sections of the site accessible with a single click from any page. A less obvious but just as fundamental change has been made, beneath the surface, to the navigational structure and organizing principle of the entire site. Taking a cue from our new Mission statement, “The National Association of Catholic Chaplains advocates for the profession of spiritual care and educates, certifies, and supports chaplains, clinical pastoral educators, and all members who continue the healing ministry of Jesus in the name of the Church,” we are reorganizing the content of the site (and making space for new content) around four main ideas.

The first is advocacy. An all-new section of the website will be used as a place to promote, advocate, and champion the profession of chaplaincy. Expect much growth and development in this section in the months to come.

The second main idea is threefold: Education, Certification, and Support. Under the already-familiar RESOURCES button, website visitors will now find a much smaller and more efficient list of sub-headings, all organized under educational topics. Academic programs, our event calendar, the annual conference, prayer resources, career development, and many more resources are available via this gateway, with many more to come. Topic headings like Ethics, Theology, Chaplain’s Tools, and Online Resources will guide users through a collection of essential materials.

The Certification section of the website, it will be noted, has not changed in any essential way apart from the continued expansion we’ve seen over the past few years. Today’s members use this part of the site to prepare for certification and renewal, to download essential documents, and to obtain contact information for crucial point persons in the interview process. In 2008 we’ve not only streamlined the download process for both candidates and interviewers; we’ve also added an Interviewer training process that has supported and supplemented the work already being done by our ITEs and other certification volunteers. We expect the website’s role in the processes of certification and renewal to continue to increase in importance.

We are still preparing to debut an updated and streamlined membership directory to replace the outdated website directory (which has been only sporadically updated since 2004). Watch NACC Now or your email for news about that update.

Lastly (and perhaps most importantly), we are inviting member input about the restructuring of the navigation menus and the reorganizing of website content. Specifically, we would love to find out:

• What do you like about the changes? Dislike?
• What do you miss?
• What else do we need?
• What made sense, organizationally/navigationally?
• What did not?

Send your feedback to webmaster@nacc.org. Thanks!

Over the past weeks, the NACC staff has continued to set calls with our state liaisons to reflect on the unique membership needs of their state, how best to communicate with state members, and what type of local gatherings might work for their state. State liaisons have been given a list of their NACC state members and have begun communication with them. Please be part of your state member network. For our most recent list of state liaison members and their role, click here. Before the end of 2008 we plan to host several conference calls of state liaisons to introduce them to each other and begin national networking of our liaisons to explore how better to connect and serve our members. Thanks to all who have volunteered to be the first liaisons; they will help us develop this invaluable networking.

Article submissions are welcome for Vision's regular Seeking/Finding column, which is meant to provide spiritual reflection and nourishment. The column’s form and content vary. Chaplains' personal reflections often focus on experiencing God in the everyday – often in one’s work or ministry. Generally, length of the column is 800 to 1,200 words. For more information or to submit an article, write to Laurie Hansen Cardona, Vision editor, at lcardona@nacc.org.

Registration for the Spiritual Care Collaborative Summit 2009, February 1-4, 2009 at the Coronado Resort in Disneyworld, is now available online. Please consider joining and meeting professional colleagues from all six associations from the United States and Canada at this historic gathering. You will be receiving another email announcement on this in the near future. To learn more about the event and to register, visit the SCC website.

Our NACC member, Jeanne Childs, continues to receive names of NACC members who are working in nursing homes and are open to dialogue on how they have articulated/promoted chaplaincy in these settings. Jeanne alerted us shortly after the last NACC Now that she was unable to respond immediately to “these wonderful people who keep emailing me” as she was leaving for a two-week vacation with her husband. She will be responding after October 20. If others are interested to be part of the dialogue, please contact Jeanne directly at jeannechilds@verizon.net, and dlichter@nacc.org.

NACC members are gathering in October, November, and December in many states throughout the country, often in collaborative settings with state chaplain organizations, health systems, and APC. If you haven’t reserved a spot at these gatherings, please do. For details, go to our events calendar. These include:

October 17, California NACC Regional Meeting, Mission Viejo, CA
October 26-28, Wisconsin Chaplaincy Association, Green Lake, WI
October 28, Odyssey Hospice, Campbell, CA
October 30, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Baton Rouge, LA
October 31, Saint Francis Medical Center/Centura Health, Colorado Springs, CO
November 4, Ascension Health, St. Louis, MO
November 12, Bon Secours Spiritual Center, Marriottsville, MD
November 14, Hammons Heart Institute, Springfield, MO
November 15, Nazareth Motherhouse, Nazareth, KY
December 6, Loyola Institute of Pastoral Studies, Chicago, IL

Please continue to keep in prayer Rev. Jim Radde, SJ (recovering from surgery), Mary Pawicz, NACC Staff member (heart surgery next week), Teddi Tomsic (major surgery), Rev. Mike Burns, SDS (eye surgery), Sr. Hilda Mallet, MHS (undergoing cancer radiation treatments which followed chemo), Sr. Joyce Troyer, CSC (recovering from surgery), Sr. Albertine Kramer, CSC (recovering from extensive surgery, is in rehabilitation, and is in transition after serving for 18 years at St. Joseph Medical Center in South Bend, IN), Sr. Paula Jacobs, SSM (terminal cancer), Dennis Eldridge (Kathy’s husband, for cancer treatment), and Laurie Hansen Cardona – NACC Vision Editor (recovering from surgery).

The following positions have been posted in the last two weeks. Please go to our job board for more information about them.

DIRECTOR OF CHAPLAIN SERVICES/ACPE PROGRAM
     Columbus, GA – St. Francis Hospital

PRIEST CHAPLAIN
     Arlington Heights, IL – Northwest Community Hospital

CPE RESIDENCY
     Temple, TX – Scott & White Hospital

DIRECTOR OF PASTORAL CARE
     Rolla, ND – Presentation Medical Center

CPE RESIDENTS
     La Crosse, WI – Gundersen Lutheran Health System

PRIEST CHAPLAIN
     Hollywood, CA – QueensCare

CHAPLAIN
     Huntington, WV – St. Mary’s Medical Center