Voices in My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast) Episode 617: A Big Week

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you're here with me again today. Guess what? I'm outside, it's early in the morning, it's dark, and it's not freezing cold. I just finished my 6-mile run and I'm walking, and I know that this is late coming out this week for a podcast, but I'm gonna tell you why. I I'm just so glad to have some decent weather again though. I have felt like my soul has been crushed waiting on spring to arrive, and then it comes and then it goes, and then it's 70 degrees one day and then it's snowing the next, and ice and wind and tornadic conditions. So this morning I'm in the peace of the morning. I've been having my prayer time outside. I've been going through my stuff, my sensations, my thoughts, my urges, my feelings, feelings because this has been a huge, huge week. I'm exhausted, but I'm invigorated. So just so you know, two very big things happened this week. One, this week was the 10th anniversary of my album Hymns, Prayers, and Invitation. That was the album that I did with Lifeway Worship where they published all the songs. My first time really in a professional studio setting with professional musicians, with professional producers, with just an amazing opportunity. The engineers were wonderful. I have so many good memories looking back at recording that album and putting it out into the world and then traveling and performing at different conferences, National Worship Leader Conference, forming friendships with other artists, musicians like Brothers McClurg and Paul Balázs and people who are still friends and I keep making more friends. Keith Getty. Anyway, all that is to say, wow, that album was an important part of my life 10 years ago. It kind of put me on the map as an artist, even though I'm an independent artist and probably I'm not a household name in any household except my own. But at the same time, it opened up some incredible opportunities, some incredible writing opportunities. A way to meet new friends. And over 600 podcasts later of this show, a lot of those connections that were on this show grew out of the experience of making that original big album for me. So, um, we did an album sale this week and it's still going on if you want to get a $5 CD. I know a lot of people don't listen to CDs anymore, but that's something that's available if you go to rickleejames.bandcamp. .com, I will sell you a $5 CD. So happy to do that. But the really big, really big thing for me— 5 years ago I set out on this journey not knowing what in the world I was doing, only knowing that I was experiencing what I believe to be a call to go into chaplaincy. I did not know what chaplains did. I did not have any desire to be a chaplain. I did not want to think about it. I wanted to run, put my head in a hole. When I found out all that was required, it was overwhelming. And I still didn't know along the way, like, I kept getting pieces and it felt like the load just kept getting heavier as I went on. Um, I thought, I'm never going to get through this. Um, so I just wanted to explain, this week I went into my certification committee interview, and I'll explain a little bit of that, of what that is. But I first wanted to go down the list of all that is required to become a certified chaplain, and there's two different designations according to the the APC, the certifying body of chaplains that are recognized by medical institutions in most of the country. So one is ACC, Associate Certified Chaplain, which is what I am going to be— spoiler alert— and then the other is a BCC, Board Certified Chaplain. The main difference is they are the exact same competencies, they are the exact same interview process, exact same workload going in. The difference is The BCC requires a Master's of Divinity, and the ACC, which I have— I don't have a Master's of Divinity, I have a Master of Arts in Healthcare Chaplaincy. So the education level— I have about 36 hours less education than the people who are BCC. So just to make that disclaimer, uh, someone pointed out to me earlier, it's not actually called board certified, it's just called certified, associate certified, if you're not a Master's of Divinity. So I wanted to make that clear, uh, just because I wasn't sure myself. But anyway, what is required of that? Uh, this is the process. You're required to have a master's degree, typically in theology or a chaplaincy-related field, with a substantial graduate-level coursework. I did not have that when I started this out 5 years ago. Knowing I was going to have to do that, going into a field I did not want to go into blindly, wondering why in the world I was feeling called into this. I— all I knew to do was it was God calling, I felt like, and I had to be obedient. So I went in. It was so hard. So you're also— you're required to have 48 graduate hours or equivalent in areas like theology, ethics, psychology, spiritual care. And that, that's actually what I finished up through Loyola. 4 units of clinical pastoral education. Actually, for the associate, you only have to have 2, but I have 4. So I have 4 units of CPE, a total of 1,600 hours supervised clinical training. Beyond that, you need at least 2,000 hours professional chaplaincy experience. After training, which I do have. You have to have an endorsement from a faith group affirming your readiness and accountability for spiritual care, which I have that. Letters of recommendation from supervisors, from colleagues who I work with, I was able to get that. Um, this is the really hard part: a rigorous written application process including theological reflection and documented clinical encounters. It took me about 2 years to write all of these. It is no joke. And these are the things that you have to defend in the next category, a live interview with a certification committee where you must demonstrate competence in 29 professional chaplaincy competencies. So that was what I did this week. And I have to say, I'm— I don't say this often, because I'm kind of a self-doubter. But I am so proud to say I passed. I made it through. I defended all 29 professional chaplaincy competencies, whether through writing or through that live interview process. And I have to tell you, I was scared to death. I told my wife, I said the morning of, I am so scared. Scared. I could barely talk. I was terrified. I don't think I could have been more scared if I was a soldier about to go into battle. I sat on the couch with my wife and we started listening to "For the Sake of the Call" by Steven Curtis Chapman, which is a song we had not heard in a long time. And the lyrics just started hitting me so hard. And for probably a half hour The tears just came down my face before the interview happened. Sat on the couch simply because it was Jesus who calls, and if we believe, we'll obey. I have to tell you, when I went into chaplaincy, I was so blind. I did not know anything that was ahead for me. Nothing. I mean, I was ignorant completely. I had no desire to be a chaplain. Now that I'm here, I've gone all this way, I've done my best to be obedient, I made it through the final step. And that day when I went into the interview, it went so smoothly. God helped me to be so prepared. I was very prepared. I went through every single question. I didn't even need to hesitate. I knew how to answer it. I had stories to back it up. I had reflection. I had thought about these things. Things. I had lived them. And at the end, what happens is your committee deliberates, and they have up to an hour before they bring you back in with their recommendation. And based on their recommendation, it decides whether or not you're going to become a certified chaplain. So they came back, I think after about 20 minutes of deliberation, and they said, first of all, we are so glad to welcome you in. We find that you are well qualified to be a certified chaplain. They said, "We're sorry it took us so long to deliberate." This was just the beautiful affirmation. They said, "We're sorry it took us so long to deliberate, but you gave us such good ideas in the interview. We were writing down in our notes things we wanted to take back to the places where we serve as chaplains." And I was like, I was just so moved. And I just thought, oh, isn't God good? Isn't God good to help me through this? I was so terrified. And it was— it's not that it was easy. It was only smooth because I had prepared so much. And I literally was praying weeks before with such anxiety. God, I don't know what to do. You got to help me get through these. You know how difficult this process has been. I'm an over-functioner. I'm a self-doubter. I always lean towards inferiority, and the affirmation I received from this Board of Certified Chaplains who welcomed me in was amazing. So now there is one final step, which they assured me is just ceremonial, um, a final approval by the national certifying body, which is the BCCI, and that, as they told me, is they take everyone's name and they basically get all the names of the certified people together. The board takes a vote, yay or nay, and it's just a ceremonial thing. And so I will be heading, Lord willing, in June to New Orleans to be inducted and be a part of that ceremony. So all that is to say, I wanted to catch everybody up. This has been an emotional week. There's been several things at the hospital too that have been emotionally heavy with patients and with other things, but I am just celebrating today. The weather breaking through today, it feels like a brand new day. I am— and literally it is the start of a new day. It's a Friday. I've got some time off coming up in a little over a week. I desperately need it. My body is tired, I'm worn out. But sorry for this being such a kind of self-centered episode, but I just needed to share, um, with someone. And so my podcast followers and friends and people who have stuck with me through this, I hope there'll be more regularity to the podcast in the coming days, um, now that I'm out from under a huge load of rigorous academic and reflective work, and I hope it'll help move us into some new things. And one thing that the certification committee urged me to do, they said, don't stop creating music, don't stop using music. They said, your gifting, it's clear, it's in music, and you need to keep doing that. We can all see that. And they even encouraged me and said, we would love for you to offer some seminars through the APC as we're training people for board certification of the possibilities of using music with clients. Well, anyway, sorry, I got cut off because it's 6 AM and my alarm went off to wake me up even though I've been up for a while. That was sort of my, "Hey, it's really time to get up just in case you slept through your 4 o'clock AM running alarm." But anyway, thank you all for listening. Thank you for sticking with me on this journey and for listening to this podcast. I will probably be taking a little time off, uh, as I rest and recuperate. My body's tired, my mind's tired. And on bringing some more new episodes, and we actually have, uh, one of the voice actors from the movie David, uh, coming up next week on Voices in My Head, so I'm excited to bring you that. Dave— or Brian Stivale is his name, and excited to bring him to you. But until then, thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Thanks you for— thank you for bearing with the lateness of these podcasts and all your love and all your support over these last 10 years from the album and 5 years for this certification process. God is good, and today I'm heading back to the hospital, so Pray for me. May the Lord be with you and bless you today. Thank you so much for listening to Voices in My Head.