COG's First Chaplain in New Zealand Continues Serving Through Retirement

Chaplaincy in New Zealand would not be the same without Chaplain Ray Bloomfield. Over the last 26 years he became the first Pentecostal Chaplain in all of Australasia, served for 16 years on the executive board of the New Zealand Healthcare Chaplains Association, and has served as President of the association for the last six. He has also planted and pastored three churches in unreached towns, supervises clergy and counselling students, and serves as a Justice of the Peace. As he nears retirement, Chaplain Bloomfield will continue many of these positions, while rebuilding the professional body of Chaplains, as well as volunteering through his local Hospice. Despite the work load, he says it doesn’t feel like work, and enables him continue the service he is passionate about.  

Through his ministry, he has kept “one foot in the world”, working alongside non-Christian people and developing relationships with them before attempting to attend to their spiritual needs. His alternative methods of reaching out to individuals included working on farms, on forestry rigs, and a budgeter in a community health center. As he became well-known in the community for his ability to help people out of debt, they began to go to see him at church. Many were drawn to Christ because he demonstrated care for the community’s holistic well-being. After planting another church, his schedule became consumed with serving the church internally, and he realized how much he missed being out among the “unchurched”. It was an epiphany which sparked the idea of Chaplaincy as a career. Around this time, he was asked to serve part time at a hospital for the incumbent Chaplain, and says he was hooked from day one. He felt strongly called to the hospital and to the patients with problems too serious to ignore. After completing his Clinical Pastoral Education, he resigned the pastorate and was appointed Chaplain of Rotorua Hospital, the first Pentecostal Chaplain in Australasia.

Chaplain Bloomfield considers his service as a Church of God Chaplain in an ecumenical environment to be the pinnacle of his ministry. He has journeyed alongside scores of patients and staff through the high and low points of their lives, officiated their weddings as well as their funerals, dedicated their children to the Lord and counseled them in times of doubt and struggle. Although proselytizing is not allowed in the government-run hospitals, patients seeking answers to their life-long questions of faith have turned to Christ in their final moments, finally accepting His unconditional love and forgiveness. He has helped indigenous Maori believed to be cursed and demon possessed, and witnessed their transformation as their afflictions were lifted. Throughout his service as a pastor and Chaplain, simply entering other’s lives and seeking to help them in a personal way has opened the door for ministry. Chaplain Bloomfield is extremely grateful that God has entrusted him with this calling, and that he has not only been able to give to others, but has been greatly enriched in return.