HOUSTON (ABP) — It takes blood, sweat and tears to put gasoline in the cars Americans drive. It’s the blood and tears that concern new oil-patch chaplains in Texas.
In spite of safety procedures, workplace accidents happen in oil fields, and those affected need more than physical care. For current and former Christian oil workers wanting to minister, oil-patch chaplaincy provides a place to serve.
Dan Ward of Hempstead, Texas (3rd from left, back row) attended the first oil patch chaplains training held in Texas. John Bird, (front row, 1st on left) president of the Houston-based Oilfield Christian Fellowship, completed oil field chaplaincy in Oklahoma last year. Others in that training included (back row, left to right) Jim Cook, Sonny Sitton, Lane Peeler, Naomi Paget, David Ramsey, Brad Durham, Harold and Barbara Lunsford, (front row) Sean McCoy, Charles Fretwell, Ed Case, Ken Lyons and Scottie Behm.
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Dan Ward of Hempstead, Texas, recently attended the first oil patch chaplains training held in Texas. Ward has been in the oil and gas industry since 1980.
“I have felt God calling me to get into some form of ministry,” Ward said. “I did some looking around for about a year before I took my training, and I found the oil-patch chaplains. I knew that was where I needed to be as soon as Oilfield Christian Fellowship [an association for Christian oil-industry workers] mentioned oil-patch chaplaincy.”
Ten Texans and several out-of-state pupils attended the training early this year. Participants learned crisis response, suicide prevention, grief support and anger management over the course of two weekends.
The idea of oil-patch chaplaincy started when Paul Bettis, chaplaincy specialist for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, asked Tom Beddow, a former oil-field welder, to coordinate a program there in 2007. The chaplaincy spread across state and denominational lines more quickly than Beddow and the convention anticipated.
“Tom Beddow called me three years ago and asked if Oilfield Christian Fellowship had an oil-field chaplaincy,” said John Bird, president of the Houston-based fellowship. “He began to tell me his vision for it, and I just felt it dovetail into what we were already doing — trying to win the oil patch for Christ. In 2009, I retired as a sales manager of a major service corporation in Houston. One goal for myself was to become a chaplain.”
Bird drove to Oklahoma City in the spring of 2009, where he went through the chaplains’ training program. Almost immediately after completing it, Bird had a chance to practice what he learned. Later, he recruited former and current Texas gas and oil workers to train for chaplaincy.
“About a month after [Bird’s] training, there was a death, and he was able to respond to that situation,” Beddow said. “He was apprehensive. I responded with him, and when we got there, he got into the flow. His training kicked in, he asked the right questions and did the right things. And when it was all over, he was amazed at how much the training had prepared him for that. That was a catalyst to getting these 10 other guys to go through the training.”
Bird believes oil-patch chaplaincy is long overdue in the potentially dangerous line of work.
“The oil patch is noted for being tough and rough,” Bird said. “There’s a lot of cussing, that kind of thing. If somebody dies, you kind of mop up the blood and go on. But we know that if people go through a critical incident, they need to be brought back to cognitive thinking.”
Without proper guidance, this departure from cognitive thinking can lead to real hazards for workers, Bird said. When faced with a coworker’s injury or death, many lose focus and the chance of another accident increases.
“It’s hard for you to understand what happened. You’re trying to think: ‘Do I really need to be here? Do I need to be home, spending time with my family?’ You’re not thinking about what you need to do, and everyone out there is critical to every man’s safety,” Bird said.
The training also teaches chaplains not to oversimplify or over-spiritualize the situation, which can hurt the mental and emotional health of those affected by an accident.
“When someone is emotionally traumatized, their logical brain is not working like it should,” Beddow said. “By saying things or being too spiritual — saying, ‘It may have been God’s will’ or ‘Let’s pray now and God will heal you’ — by saying things like that to people who aren’t Christians, or who are Christians, but are very angry at God, it can make people very upset and do more harm than good.”
When they’re not responding to critical incidents, chaplains are encouraged to lead Bible studies geared toward gas and oil workers.
“We recommend having Bible studies in people’s homes or offices or in an oil field service company’s shop,” Beddow said. “A lot of these people that work in the oil field don’t feel comfortable in church. Church is not a safe environment for them. But they will go somewhere if they know someone and they’re invited.”
Beddow hopes chaplains can open doors for their home churches to minister in the oil fields.
“One of the things that we want to see happen is that because this chaplain is here, there’s a way for his church to be strengthened and be knowledgeable about how to do direct ministry in the oil field,” Beddow said.
Experience in the industry is a prerequisite for oil-field chaplaincy, Beddow said. “It allows our chaplains to speak ‘the language’ and to be more readily accepted by oil-field workers.”
“The volunteer chaplain is the core of this ministry. Without them, we can’t function,” he said.
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Lauren Hollon is a communications intern for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.