An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Air Force, Army chaplains lead regional conference

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Sarah Ruckriegle
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  The 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Chapel hosted a one-day conference centered on the themes of care for the soul and spiritual discipline here Nov. 13, 2014. The 386th AEW Chaplain (Col.) Scott Ruthven and the U.S. Army Central Command Chaplain (Col.) Marc Gauthier both presented at the conference.

The presentations covered a review of two books. Ruthven established the foundation for the conference with “Soul Keeping” by John Ortberg, and Gauthier covered the hands-on section with “God in My Everything: How an Ancient Rhythm Helps Busy People Enjoy God” by Ken Shigematsu.

The conference provided the coalition and joint forces’ chaplains an opportunity to come together for some practical spiritual resiliency training.

“At the end of the day, we wanted our teams to leave excited about learning something new and life-giving at a deep level,” Ruthven said.

For members of the chaplain corps, relationships are imperative, Ruthven said, not only personally with family and friends, but also professionally with those the chaplain corps serves and between chaplains and chaplain assistants. The one-day conference provided the attendees with fellowship between the services.

"Ultimately, fellowship is all about helping each other," Gauthier said. “We all need to take the time to care for each other by prioritizing time for relationships.”

The fellowship provided Air Force religious support teams, or RSTs, and Army unit ministry teams, or UMTs, a model for elastic spiritual growth through the practice of a personal rule of life, in other words, a spiritual battle rhythm. Each RST or UMT learned the tools to keep their “spiritual canteens full,” so when the critical point comes, they can minister from a watershed of spiritual strength.

More than 50 chaplains and chaplain assistants from the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines attended the conference. Ruthven said, “It was a great success and we hope to do it again.” The conference was the first joint effort to pair ongoing professional education with professional development for members of the chaplain corps currently deployed to Southwest Asia.