Communicating in chaplaincy: fundamentals and case studies

Reflecting on the pastor's professionalism is one of the tasks of practical theology. The goal of this article is to contribute to good practice in Christian chaplaincy. We investigate how to communicate as a chaplain and, to this end, we discuss the functions of asking questions as exemplary of professional chaplaincy interventions. Methodologically, the article has a theoretical as well as an empirical scope. For the former, we develop fundamentals for communicating in pastoral care; for the latter, we make use of illustrative case studies from Dutch chaplaincy. This article discusses the different levels of pastoral care: the facts told, the meanings people attribute to these facts, and the core of the conversation, that is the religious or existential aspects. We analyse the step from the level of facts to the level of meaning in pastoral care. The article then moves to the core of a conversation. In the respective paragraphs, case studies provide insights into how chaplains used questions to guide people from one level of communication to the next.