Serving God, Country, and Congregation

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Rhodes
  • 927th Air Refueling Wing
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The pastor knew that talking wouldn't be enough to incite his parishioners to action. Outside the walls of the church, there was a war going on, and every able-bodied person would be needed if their cause was to prevail. To let the men and women of his parish know he was not just a man of empty words, the clergyman reached up and pulled away his vestments, revealing the uniform of a military colonel underneath.

Although dramatic, the above scene is not from a movie.  It is the account of Peter Muhlenberg, an 18th-century Anglican minister and colonel in the Continental Army. Today, there are clergymen who carry on the legacy of citizen-warriors. They are Air Force Reserve Chaplains, and they regularly leave their congregations behind to minister to servicemembers at war. One of them is Lt. Col. John Weller, wing chaplain for the 927th Air Refueling Wing, a reserve unit stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., and senior pastor of Okeechobee Church of the Nazarene. He recently returned from a deployment to Southwest Asia.

"I really have the best of both worlds," Weller said recently after returning from his 188-day deployment. "I have been ministering for 30 years, and have been a military chaplain for 23 years of that."

When Weller left behind his wife, adult children, and congregation in Okeechobee, he relied on his previous experience in the military and personal faith to see him through.
"As a reservist, you have to be sensitive where your responsibilities lie," Weller said. "You have to balance family and military service, and in my case, the parishioners."

"I believe it can be a very positive experience for a church ... to send their pastor to a military deployment for a period of time," said a teammate who worked alongside Weller on the recent deployment, Maj. William Thornton, deputy wing chaplain of the 19th Airlift Wing, Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark. "It gives the pastor an opportunity to minister in a different environment, and it gives the congregation an opportunity to step forward and more fully engage in the ministry of the church."

Weller traded his church's familiar faces and families for thousands of servicemembers he'd never met.

"People in the military today come from many different backgrounds," Weller said. "They have a wealth of different experiences and perspectives that makes counseling them a unique challenge."

By far, counseling servicemembers took up the majority of his time, Weller said. He explained that he and his team were responsible for counseling the troops in every Air Force and Army base in Southwest Asia.

"It was an extremely high counseling mode. We dealt with workplace, deployment and relationship issues," Weller said. "Years ago, if something at home broke, it was up to the spouse to fix it. Advances in technology make real-time communication possible, and when you're separated those same advances can stress people out."

"The base and Iraq drawdown posed challenges in that a lot of counseling took place early on in our deployment," said Thornton. "A chaplain serves all, military and civilian, either through worship and religious rites, or through counseling."

Even though he knows how hard it can be for some, Weller encourages all members of the military to deploy.

"If you have an opportunity, you should go," he said. "Deploying gives you an opportunity to do what you were trained to do and excel at it. It gives you an opportunity to shine."
Weller was the kind of lead chaplain all ministers wish they could have, explained Thornton.

"Chaplain Weller is a caring, compassionate, proactive person whose first answer is, 'Yes, we can take care of that,'" said Thornton.

For that reason, Weller's congregation and the 927th ARW were happy he could serve and were equally happy to welcome him home.