For Chaplains & Spiritual Caregivers
Supporting Chaplains and Spiritual Caregivers
Chaplains are vital interreligious leaders who serve at the intersection of secular institutions and religious life. These spiritual caregivers accompany individuals and communities during times of crisis, transition, grief, and loss. They often provide care across lines of religious difference—supporting people of many faiths, no faith, or traditions outside their own.
ICJS offers programming to support chaplains as they provide inclusive spiritual care in hospitals, prisons, academic campuses, military bases, law enforcement agencies, and other diverse institutional settings.
Join an ICJS Interreligious Spirituality Group
The ICJS Interreligious Spirituality Group for spiritual care providers and chaplains is a free professional development opportunity to build connections with other spiritual care providers and deepen interreligious learning. The upcoming spirituality groups will be held from September-June. One group will meet on Tuesdays and the other will meet on Wednesdays. Select the option that works for you below.
ICJS Programs for Chaplains and Spiritual Caregivers
Lunch and Learn Events
ICJS offers quarterly online webinars on topics of interest to spiritual care providers featuring speakers who are leaders in the field. All sessions are recorded and are available for viewing in our On Demand library on this page.
Book Study
ICJS hosts book studies that bring together chaplains and spiritual care providers from diverse traditions to read and reflect on texts exploring spiritual, theological, and social issues. These gatherings foster interreligious dialogue, mutual understanding, and meaningful connection across religious communities.
Spirituality Groups
Are you a spiritual care provider looking for free professional development opportunities and peer support? If so, please consider participating in the virtual ICJS Interreligious Spirituality Group for spiritual care providers and chaplains. This is an opportunity to build connections with other spiritual care providers and deepen interreligious learning. Spirituality groups meet monthly via Zoom.
Reflect and Refresh
ICJS invites spiritual care providers and chaplains across Maryland to come together for a day of reflection, learning, dialogue, and communal care. Through interactive and engaging workshops we will explore topics that pertain to providing spiritual care. Space will also be provided for participants to engage in care practices that cultivate wellbeing, hope, and joy.
News: ICJS Awards 2025 Interreligious Capacity-Building Grants for Chaplains
With the support of the Bunting Family Foundation, ICJS has awarded interreligious capacity-building grants to four organizations to help them expand their ability to offer chaplaincy and spiritual care services: Rivers of Life AME Church, Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, and University of Maryland Medical System Foundation. The grants of up to $1,000 each are designed to specifically address the interreligious needs of volunteer chaplains and those serving in organizations that sometimes lack access to sufficient resources.
The organizations receiving this year’s micro-grants are offering vital spiritual care to communities that are too often forgotten. With this support, they’ll be able to expand their reach and strengthen their support of these underserved communities.
Chaplain Lunch and Learn Events On Demand
Spiritual Care for Interreligious Families
This webinar explores how spiritual leaders support families navigating multiple faith identities and create inclusive spaces for belonging, ritual, and growth. The webinar features Rev. Samantha Gonzalez-Block and Rabbi Debbi Reichmann, spiritual leaders of the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington—an independent community of interfaith families committed to sharing, learning about, and celebrating Jewish and Christian traditions.
Deepening Our Capacity for Interreligious Spiritual Care
In this event, we explored ways to expand one’s interreligious competency and capacity as a spiritual caregiver. Following the presentation, participants had the opportunity to learn about ICJS’ capacity-building grants, designed to specifically address the interreligious needs of chaplains in small Maryland-based organizations with limited access to other resources.
The Sacred Passage: Spiritual care for the dying
Participants from our 2024 Faculty Seminar, which focused on interreligious perspectives on death and dying, shared their research and work related to end-of-life issues.. They explored how different religious traditions shape the meaning, practices, and rituals of end-of-life care, through both personal experience and interreligious dialogue.
Providing Spiritual Care to the Religiously Unaffiliated
During this online event, Pastor Sue Pizor Yoder shared her insights from the last 5 years she has spent creating community for unaffiliated individuals who are seeking spiritual connection outside congregational walls.
Confronting Antisemitism and Islamophobia as Chaplains
In the wake of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, six organizations have created a task force to address growing antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias. During this lunch and learn we heard from the task force about the purpose of their partnership and how they are working to support chaplains and spiritual care providers.
Spiritual Care for the Grieving
During this Chaplain Lunch and Learn, the panelists identified different forms of loss, how to support grieving care recipients, and the role spirituality and religion can play in navigating individual and collective grief.
Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Perspectives on Spiritual Care
This event featured an interactive discussion with four chaplains from four traditions—Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish—to explore how spiritual care is understood and practiced within their contexts.
