Pastor Barbara Lindeman on chaplaincy in a community hospice

On the Road

As summer comes to an end, it's time to begin preparations for the fall and winter. We've just completed scheduling back-to-back "Tree of Lights'" memorial services in three communities, for one Sunday in November. Early in December we'll participate in the National Children's Service by offering a local service of our own. In between those events we will offer "Grief and the Holidays" seminars in eight communities. And somewhere in there we'll assess and visit hospice clients and families in their homes, hospitals, and nursing homes, and continue with our regular grief groups.

We are the Hospice Team for Immanuel St. Joseph Mayo Health System’s Community Health program. We serve nine counties with seven community affiliate sites. The program started over 20 years ago, when five of these sites organized a local hospice with a nurse and some volunteers. Today we have many nurses, hundreds of volunteers, two social workers, one chaplain (myself), one bereavement specialist, and several support staff in our central office. Most of us work five, sometimes seven days a week, mornings, afternoons, and evenings.

My primary work as chaplain consists of assessing families when they are admitted, maintaining spiritual assessments throughout their hospice period, and at times, following up with bereavement services. Many families have their own clergy, but when there is no pastor involved I become the families’ pastor. I assist with planning the funeral, officiate at the funeral, and provide follow-up grief services.

Since our hospice covers nine counties, most of us spend much of our time on the road traveling to our patients’ and families’ homes. Our main purpose is to work with clients on pain control, symptom control, and emotional support for them, their friends, and their families. We also provide support after a death. We work with both hospice and non-hospice individuals who are struggling with all types of loss and end-of-life issues.

In the past year we began to hold seminars for nursing home/assisted living residents where we facilitate discussions on life losses and how they affect us emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We also serve our communities by speaking on topics such as end-of-life issues, death and dying, and living with loss; we meet with church groups, high school and college classes, youth groups, and civic groups. People throughout the region contact us for information on a wide variety of loss issues. We work with pastors, school counselors, teachers, and social workers, and provide them with materials and/or referral sources.

My schedule is quite flexible. This weekend I’ll be visiting a hospice family forty miles from here as some of their children will be home and they want to meet me; this Saturday morning I’ll make a bereavement call on a family whose loved one died last night. In many ways my work is similar to what a parish pastor would do, only the geographic area is a bit larger and the “‘parish members” keep changing. What is different is that my primary work is with the dying. All in all it is most fulfilling, satisfying work for one who loves to be on the road, meeting new people everyday, and ministering to a wide diversity of persons.

For sixteen years, Barbara Lindeman was a librarian/social studies teacher at the high school level, then a family counselor, and finally pursued her dream of becoming a professional chaplain via seminary, CPE in Eau Claire, St. Louis, a CPE residency in Dayton, OH and ordination in the United Church of Christ in Minnesota. She is finally living her dream, truly rejoicing in each day’s work as Chaplain for ISJ-MHS Mankato, MN. She is also the assistant pastor at Zion United Church of Christ, preaching, teaching and visiting members of her congregation.