Creating Space: Story, Reflection and Practice in Healthcare Chaplaincy

Creating Space is a passionate and engaged exploration of the ministry and professional role of healthcare chaplains which uses the tools and methods of practical theology to reflect on healthcare chaplaincy and spiritual care. It models the way in which practice development emerges from reflecting on the human story and reveals to healthcare, the Church and the community, the unique role of the chaplain’s experiences as a resource to others. It is written for professional practitioners, prompting their own contextual learning and development, whether as chaplains, pastoral carers, parish clergy, lay ministers, volunteers in any caring context, those who work in listening therapies, those who provide care and support to others of any kind, or those who use or teach reflective practice.

The authors are both Anglican clergy who are passionate about healthcare chaplaincy and feel privileged to be called to be a priest in this context. They have healthcare backgrounds and are both naturally and professionally reflective. By “creating space” daily as a forum for reflection, and here as a book, the authors model a practical theological reflection. As chaplain practitioners, they share the ontological position that knowledge is gained by human experience with people exploring their own story and that of others. Here they want to combine this with the epistemology of sharing discoveries from the story of their work together. The storytelling of these two practitioners aims to reveal a means of empowering the “being” of healthcare chaplaincy. These are their inner stories combined with the story of their work.

This book is a ‘must-read’ both for everyone involved in healthcare chaplaincy, and everyone who wants to know more about the remarkable work chaplains do.

The book embodies more than ten years’ experience. Its handling of space – space for reflection, for mutual hospitality, for pastoral encounter – is thought-provoking and impressive. Readers will learn much about practical theology, about appropriate models of ministry and ministry in largely secular contexts, about chaplains’ self-identity and self-care, and much else.

This is both a deeply practical and deeply spiritual book, and I recommend it with enthusiasm and admiration.

Professor Adrian Thatcher, University of Exeter