US Army Chaplain (Col) Dennis Newton is chronicled in an Army article that covers his tour of duty at Fort Irwin, where he reinvigorated the local Christian community:

Chaplain Newton said the decision was made to change the 11 a.m. service to a contemporary praise service, known as ChapelNext. But in order to accommodate those who have different flavors of Protestant services, the gospel service was made healthy and a traditional hymn service was established.

“We jumped from 70 people in attendance to…190 in the first week,” he noted…

Overall, the average number of people attending religious services on any given Sunday at Fort Irwin now nears 1,000, he said.

Christian Soldiers weren’t the only ones who benefited from the Chaplain’s mission.

[Newton] spoke about the addition of the Naturalist and the Muslim services to the installation for those Soldiers and family members desiring them [saying] finding Bruce O’Dell was key to developing the nature-based religious services on the installation.

Fort Irwin has more Muslim Soldiers than any other installation regardless of size, he said, noting that with the 51st Translator Interpreter Company, Muslim role players and contractors are an addition to the normal Muslim demographics in the Army…

According the Fort Irwin Directorate of Human Resources Fort Irwin has about 100 Soldiers who list Islam as their religious preference.

The US military Chaplaincy takes its duty to serve the spiritual needs of military members — all military members — seriously.  Newton’s actions are commendable — and normal.

Of course, conspiracy theorists will probably claim the Naturalist and Islamic services were actually an elaborate scheme by fundamentalist Christians to take over the world…

Via the Army Chaplaincy blog.