International Pastoral Care and Chaplaincy Week, 2017AD

I welcome all pastoral counselors, pastoral care givers and chaplains to this year’s pastoral care and chaplaincy week, 2017AD. This is an open opportunity for us all to discover how best to impact our world better professionally as offer them the needed services.

The year 2017AD theme of discussion is “Hospitality: Cultivating Inclusion.”  This is the topic we are going to examine carefully, and tactically too, to enable us discover where to exact greater efforts on to enable us fulfill our mandate in the best profitable and beneficial professional ways. Let’s begin with the definition of the key words:

Hospitality: means kindness, tenderness and being compassionate.

Cultivating:  means the act of nurturing someone, the act of developing someone, the act of making someone to flourish, the act of improving someone, the act of equipping someone.

Inclusion: means adding someone in a group of persons, adding on acquaintance.

Hospitality in pastoral care and chaplaincy simply means:

1.     Extending kindness to visitors.

2.     Extending kindness to tourists.

3.     Extending kindness to patients in hospitals.

4.     Extending kindness to people in need.

In pastoral care and chaplaincy practice, allowing our compassion to make us attend to people with tenderness and kindness in our practice and interaction with others.

Cultivating an inclusion simply means, extending the hospitality (kindness) to others that we may come across in our life journeys. Adding people to our circle of influence at all times; caring to bring an improvement to them in life, nurturing them and assisting examine personal development.

From the definitions of the key words in this phrase, we are well positioned to put forward our views on this topic, calling on all practicing pastoral counselors, care-givers and chaplains to join us in this journey.

Hospitality Chaplaincy:

In hospitality chaplaincy and pastoral care practice and service delivery which can be found spanning in the following industries.

1.     Hospitality industries.

a.     Hotels.

b.     Restaurants.

c.      Guest houses.

d.     Camps.

e.     Brothels etc.

2.     Tourism industries.

a.     Tourist centers.

b.     Ancient landmarks.

c.      Water falls.

d.     Museums.

e.     Cultural centers.

Professional pastoral counselors, care-givers and chaplains are to extend their kindness to all visitors, strangers and tourists as they offer them pastoral care and chaplaincy services with all tenderness, and compassion for them regardless of their races, cultures, status and religious leanings.

Practicing professionals in pastoral care and chaplaincy must cultivate, nurture, develop and equip others for profitable interaction and collaboration with all people, extending their kindness to people of all groups and ages.

We are to show hospitality: cultivate inclusion in our practice and service delivery to the generality of people. We are to expand our circle of influence to accommodate others to whom our services are to be extended to. This will favourably position us for greater services and recognition.

In conclusion, let all of us professionals, embrace hospitality: cultivating inclusion, in our works, activities and professional practices.

Happy celebration!

Prepared by

Chaplain Prof. David Mike-Jacobs JP, AP, CPC, CBC, CCE.

Professor of Anthropology.

The president General, The Association of Professional Chaplains in Nigeria