British Army Chaplain Stephen Hancock has an interesting article at the UK Ministry of Defense website on “life on the front line.”  While the article is interesting on the whole, Chaplain Hancock’s underlying premise of service is worth highlighting:

I really believe in visibility, that a chaplain should be seen walking around talking to anybody and everybody. By doing that you build relationships and soldiers and officers will trust you. If you’re invisible you have no chance of achieving a great deal with them…

You’ve got to do what they’re doing, be with them, share with them, and then it’s incredible how, when you least expect it, they will come to you with their intimate pain and intimate secret.
 
And that is a real privileged position and you start to think ‘my presence is not wasted’.

That’s an excellent articulation of why military Chaplains minister the way they do — shoulder to shoulder with the troops they serve, whether in garrison or on the front lines.

Via the Mad Padre.