Businesses across the country are bringing chaplains into the workplace, a sign of a growing trend among employers to embrace religion rather than reject it, according to a New York Times report. Modeled after the military chaplaincy program, which requires chaplains to serve a religiously diverse community and not evangelize, corporate chaplaincy programs have doubled in the last five years, said David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and author of the book God at Work. He said roughly 600 to 700 businesses currently have chaplaincy programs. Though many chaplains are ordained ministers and hired directly by businesses, Corporate Chaplains of America has found a market in staffing chaplains across the country. “Our mission is to build relationships with employees, with the hope of gaining permission to share the life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ in a non-threatening manner,” read a statement on the group’s Web site. The Rev. Ken Willis told the New York Times he has presided over funerals, visited employees in the hospital, arranged housing and even opened bank accounts as a staff chaplain for Tyson Foods. “My hope is that they will see in me the love of God,” he said.
