In recent years there has been an increasing focus among Christians on integrating faith with work. A little-known concept called corporate chaplaincy is making it easier than ever for Christian business owners to provide pastoral ministry to their employees.
Tom Toner of Spring Hill, Tennessee, eats, sleeps, and breathes workplace chaplaincy. After serving twenty years in the United States Air Force, he received a master’s degree from Southeastern Seminary, then found his true calling in the world of corporate pastoral care.
Having spent years training Air Force recruiters, Tom put the skills he learned in that role to good use after Corporate Chaplains of America hired him as their Director of the Corporate Chaplains Institute. After a year of training other chaplains, he ventured into the field and began serving companies directly, eventually relocating to Nashville to provide ministry for Coca-Cola Consolidated. Tom later felt led to strike out on his own and founded “Our Company Chaplain,” the business/ministry he now operates in Tennessee and Alabama (Full disclosure: I serve as a corporate chaplain for a construction company in Alabama under the umbrella of “Our Company Chaplain”. I receive no benefit from publishing this article).
As a corporate chaplain, Tom has performed countless funerals, made hundreds of hospital visits, and come alongside many who would have probably suffered in silence if they had not had a company chaplain they could turn to. Tom believes in the effectiveness of ministry in the workplace because he has seen its benefits with his own eyes. As Christians become increasingly aware that they can’t separate their identities as believers from the jobs where they spend significant portions of their lives, corporate chaplaincy is providing an effective bridge between the two.
Tom approaches chaplaincy vigorously, doing regular rounds at job sites and offices, building relationships, and continuously reminding employees that they are loved and that he is merely a phone call away. During his long career, he has reached many with the gospel who would have likely never attended a traditional church.
Tom believes that the workplace is the most extensive mission field in the world, with the vast majority of workers having no relationship with Jesus. He illustrates the effectiveness of corporate chaplaincy with such stories as the trucking company employee he was able to dissuade from committing suicide and a life-changing encounter he had with another employee as he drove along a deserted stretch of road. In the latter case, Tom was in an area where he had no reason to expect to see someone he knew sitting on the side of the road, so he stopped his car to talk with him. He immediately noticed the man was holding a gospel tract he had received from Tom. The desperate man began to confide in Tom that he had reached the end of his rope and didn’t know where to turn. Tom shared the gospel with him, and before they parted ways, he accepted Christ as his savior, and Tom welcomed a new brother into the Kingdom.
Experiences like this have caused Tom to become concerned that while businesses in the U.S. go to great lengths to provide benefits that address their employees’ physical and mental health, they tend to neglect their workers’ spiritual well-being. He firmly believes that God honors the business owners who provide a ministry resource for their employees.
Tom has also channeled his passion for workplace ministry into various media, which includes the book, Hearts at Work: How to Powerfully Practice, Passionately Pursue, and Purposely Persuade by Your Faith as well as the podcast Faith, Family and the Construction Industry, which is expected to launch in August.
If you ask Tom for his philosophy toward his chosen mission field, he will neatly sum it up in a sentence; “Every Christian-owned Company in America needs a Chaplain.
If you would like to learn more about corporate chaplaincy, Tom’s book, or his upcoming podcast, he can be reached at tomt@ourcompanychaplain.com.