Celebrating 30 Years of Chaplaincy

This year marks the thirtieth year of Chaplain Joe Schuck’s service as both a Community Service and Vocational Chaplain, and though he may be retiring officially, he has no plans to stop serving. Over the last three decades, he has made considerable contributions both in his workplaces and beyond their walls. Not only has he been employed as a Chaplain in medical centers, but he has served Active Duty in the Coast Guard, pastored full time, founded the Alabama COG Chaplains Association, and volunteered in hospitals and disaster scenes.
Chaplain Schuck got his first glimpse of what Clinical Chaplaincy might look like as a volunteer, visiting church members in the hospital with his wife. At the onset of these clinical visitations, he found the unfamiliar environment daunting, and remembers feeling too inadequate for the task at hand. He remembers being so hesitant to enter the first hospital room that as he and his wife neared, he pushed her to go in first! However, as he became accustomed to the beeping machines, IVs, and doctors, he found that he had a heart for Clinical Chaplaincy, and continued to volunteer for many years. After becoming a licensed clergy, he was asked to become a Chaplain for a home health organization, where he began to learn more about end of life issues. Through this position, he also learned that it was a ministry truly about the people, not their illness. He says these relationships are the foundation for his service, and have taught him about resiliency, strength, and faith through challenging times.

In 1998, he and his wife were both endorsed as Clinical Chaplains, and soon after moved to Lanett, AL, where they were hired as Associate Chaplains by the East Alabama Medical Center. Simultaneously, Chaplain Schuck began to pastor Faith Temple Church of God, and after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, he and his wife decided to expand their ministry to lead disaster recovery efforts. With teams of Chaplains and laity, the couple made 11 trips to the Gulf Coast, and found participation to be so life-changing that they started an organization that organized quick response chaplain teams. Through this organization, Chaplains would be deployed to disaster situations in less than 36 hours across eight Southern state, and were on the scenes of hurricanes and tornado outbreaks serving communities in the midst of devastation. In three years, Chaplain Schuck and his wife directed 17 disaster relief trips while working full time and pastoring, and credit their church family for their understanding and support throughout that busy chapter of life.
Chaplain Schuck has served thousands of individuals throughout his 30 years as a Chaplain, but he says that no one was changed more throughout those years than him. He says that when he started, he “knew little about people and God [and] had little patience, mercy, or compassion”. As he served individuals nearing the end of life, he witnessed God’s faithfulness and love demonstrated over and over, often in ways that defied expectations. He sat beside people with great levels of faith, baptized others still in the hospital, comforted families heartbroken after a loss, and rejoiced with others as loved ones are led to Christ. He feels privileged to have been able to serve as a Chaplain for thirty years, and though he may be retired, he says he will always visit patients, and continue what he believes he was created to do.