(Larry Towne is our Area Rep for Central Midwest. He is also Chaplain Endorser for the CCCC. This month, for our Around the Conference article, he has chosen to highlight one of our military chaplains, Brady Rentz. Brady serves as the Command Chaplain on board the USS Arlington. He is partnered in ministry with his wife Nitza, son Lucius (5) and daughter Ruby (7 months). He looks forward to pizza and movie night with his family following every return to port.)
Ministry Afloat the USS Arlington
by Chaplain Brady Rentz USN
As we pulled into port on our final underway of the year, I spent most of the morning out on the weather decks and Fo’c’sle talking with my shipmates. As I asked them about their plans for holiday leave I realized how attached to them I had grown over the last year. I realized how much I cared about them, their individual and family challenges and their knowledge of God and his love for them. I began to think about the missions our officers and crew had been tasked with and how much the command had accomplished over the last year. As I spoke with them, I could see the fatigue in their eyes and the longing for home and a period of rest that was heavy on their hearts.
Over the past year, our ship and her crew had gone from being in the yard for a six-month period to being underway for the remainder of the year. Our schedule was split almost perfectly down the middle with most of the summer and fall being spent at sea tasked with multiple missions and sea trials. The days at sea went by fast as they were filled with more work than could be done. Time away from friends and family seemed to drag, as there were many busy days and long nights that merged together while at sea. Each underway period brought unique opportunities and learning experiences that culminated in feelings of accomplishment and frustration within compressed and stressful time periods. The resilience and endurance of my shipmates during this level of “operational tempo” amazed me everyday. As “CHAPS” I have the unique opportunity, and divine appointment, of ministering to them in this environment.
Ministry of presence through listening and attending to my shipmates in times of stress, pain and joy has fostered my deep attachment to them. In reflection, this ministry of presence was exercised on the deck-plates, counseling in my office and conducting worship services in our ship’s chapel. By these means I was able to minister not only to the “healthy,” but to the “sick,” and be with them in their times of need. I learned that the greatest time of need for my shipmates is in the presence of tears. In our military, tears come reluctantly and in the wrong time and place, at a cost. A “present help” and a trusted listener has often been the greatest need; and the greatest privilege has been to be there for my shipmates to open up to me on the deck plates, seek me in their experiences of pain and provide a time of rest through a Bible study or worship service. In this ministry of presence, in being quick to listen and slow to speak, the Lord has provided the opportunity to share the Gospel more times than I can count or even imagine, to provide hope in life and prevent a suicide, to begin the healing process resulting from a loss and just to help my shipmates bare their burdens of pain and suffering as they live in a fallen world.
In my attachments to my shipmates and in my reflections upon the last year I am overwhelmed by the great privilege the Lord has given me in this ministry. I am continually amazed by the beauty of his creation of my shipmates and the presence of a “God shaped hole” in each of them. With all of their personalities, the good and the bad, the joy and the pain, they are my flock; and I grow closer each day to relating to Jesus’ heart expressed in Luke 15:4–7,
What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!” I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
