🛠️ Building Relationships at Truck Stops

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Oh, okay, here we are back. And I thought that was the last presentation. You know, one of the themes that came through was like, it's real ministry. It's gritty at times. It's in the trenches.
It's, you're not dealing with people at their best all the time, right? Well, so then that brings us right to a very related topic, building relationships at truck stops. So relationships are the foundation of effective chaplaincy. Truck trust and truck cycles open. Trust opens the heart. Long before sermons do, every conversation is a chance to reflect Christ's love, even so let your light shine before men that they might see your good works and glorify your Father, who is in heaven. So it's relationship, relationship, relationship.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Absolutely, relationships are important. Truckers have—our truck stop chaplains have a two-fold ministry. One is to the driver, and then one is to the truck stop employee. And it's different because usually when you're dealing with a driver, depending on where you're at—in the parking lot, in the chapel, in the TV room, wherever it is—you can talk to them. You can see where their conversation goes. You can tell them what they need to hear. And of course, you're always building relationships.

But the ministry to the truck stop employee—you have to remember, we're there by invitation, right? Invitation of the truck stop. And they're at work. They're at their place of work when we're talking to them. So every truck stop chaplain has two gears. The first gear is relational gear, and that's the gear we start off in. That's the way—that's the gear we go in.

Now, in the course of that, in the course of talking to people, we look for opportunities to shift into ministry gear. And if we get that opportunity, then that's great. You know, we can minister. But remembering their schedule, their boss watching over their shoulder, their—whatever it may be—don't be afraid to switch back into relational gear. You know, you could say, live to fight another day, if you will. You know, live to minister another day.

But the relationship is important, because they may not even be interested in hearing about Jesus or opening up to you, but the more they come to know you, the more they can laugh with you, the more they can get to know you. Sometime down the road, if they have a crisis in their life, you just might be the one that they go to, right?

Speaker 1 (Henry):
That's really powerful. So really, it really is. Ministry begins with presence. Presence speaks louder than programs, because this consistent, approachable, and real—Jesus modeled ministry through presence among the people. In fact, the Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory of the One and Only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So in a sense, it's looking at each relationship that is put before you, and even asking the Holy Spirit to ask yourself, what do I do in this situation? How is—is this a situation that—should I go talk longer? Talk less? This person might be busy. It's even looking for those relational cues when someone is like, you know, I've got to go.

You can tell when they're tuned out, right?

Speaker 2 (Monte):
One of the things that we talk about in the Influence Smart class is—don’t have a conversation with someone who is either not interested or doesn’t have time to talk, right? Because you’re not accomplishing anything except closing their door a little tighter.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Wow, that’s really powerful. So trust takes time. Truckers trust actions more than words. Authenticity grows stronger than authority. Your reliability reveals God’s faithfulness. “Let love and faithfulness never leave you.” Proverbs 3, verse 3 through 4.

So reflect on that a little bit about truckers. Trust actions more than words.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Your presence. Your steadfast presence. Your consistent presence at a truck stop—the way you treat them, the way you treat them with respect, treat them with love, joke with them, you know, you kind of won with them. And not just them, but again, the truck stop employees as well.

Truck drivers—the old adage—people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And when they realize that you do care about them, you got time for them. You know, if somebody comes to talk and you’re busy and you kind of rush them off because you think you have something more important to do…

You know, God’s timing. You know, God brings that person in. And when God brings that person in, that’s probably God’s timing to listen and to talk.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
That’s powerful, you know? And I do see that. I planted churches, and I have saw that—it was often the third or fourth moment of encounter—and positive ones—where all of a sudden, just a little bit, the familiarity in a good way opened the door.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Familiarity in a good way—that’s a great way to put it.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
So partnership with the truck stop staff—you brought that up. Let’s get into that. Managers, clerks, maintenance crews—our ministry partners. Respect their space and rules. Peaceful cooperation opens long-term doors.

Here’s my question: do the truck stop owners typically welcome chaplains who are not—how does it go?

Speaker 2 (Monte):
It goes back to the relationship building. Okay? Take the time and treat them like somebody important. Yeah, you—normally, you're welcomed.

One thing that is just a pet peeve of mine—a personal peeve—is as I go to truck stops where there’s a chapel outside, and I’ll go in and I’ll talk to different employees and managers and say, “Do you know who the chaplain is out there?” And it breaks my heart when they say, “No.”

“They never come right here. The chaplain does not even—does not…” You know, we think they go out there sometimes. And you know, the chaplain needs to be—you're there for a purpose. God’s put you there for a purpose. And anybody around that purpose is there for you. That’s the way I look at it.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
You know, one of the things that Chaplain Tom Walcott talked about—he did the Ministry Foundations class—and we know we may get into this a little bit later, but I’ll give like a little mention now—is that he said that wearing a shirt that says “Chaplain” on it, and just walking around and introducing yourself without even having long conversations…

“Oh, are you here?” “Yeah, my name is Sarah.” “Oh, hi Sarah, I’m Henry. I’m the truck stop chaplain over there in the chapel—pleased to meet you.”

Sarah. Okay. Exactly. That’s what you’re talking about.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yeah. It’s just—you know, and learn their names. Write them down. Yes, I carry a notebook because, yeah, my forgetter works pretty good up here. But yeah, I try to write the names down that we meet so later on I know—who’s that again? Oh yeah, hi Martha. You know.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Right, right, right. Okay, that’s so good.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Boundaries and confidentiality. Respect privacy as a sacred trust. Never share personal stories without permission. Integrity builds lasting credibility. “One who goes about as a gossip betrays confidence, but the one who is of trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret.”

So how important are, like, loose lips sink ships—types of things my dad used to say, you know? Loose lips sink ships. Henry, so you got to, like, be careful. Talk about trust and confidentiality.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Right, right, right. Okay, that's so good. Boundaries and confidentiality respect privacy as a sacred trust. Never share personal stories without permission. Integrity builds lasting credibility. One who goes about as a gossip betrays confidence, but the one who is of trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret. So how important are, like, loose lips sink ships? Types of things my dad used to say, you know, loose lips sink ships. Henry, so you got to, like, be careful. Talk about trust and confidentiality.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
It's very important as well. If you get a—develop a reputation, and it only takes one time of sharing stories where you don't need to be sharing them or whatever, then you'll lose it. You know, you get that reputation, people won't come talk to you because you can't be trusted, especially with the employees that see you on a daily basis, right? And a lot of them—a lot of employees think you're there brought in by management to spy on them in the first place, which is not true. So you have to kind of break that barrier and realize what you say to me goes no farther than here,

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Right, right. I don't work for the man, the woman who owns the—right. I am an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yes, we're separate.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Yeah, that's really important. You know, I think one of the things to keep in mind here is that one comment you said, like, one violation of trust hurts more than you can imagine.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yep, in the truck stop employee setting, especially because it's the same group all the time, and one person—you break that trust, you'll never get it back.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Powerful. And that leads us right into this one: consistency builds credibility. Faithful chaplains show up when they say they will. Reflect on that. I would imagine that, because you might do something and be around all night and no one may see you, a truck stop chaplain could be tempted to think, “You know what? I'm just not going to show up in the hours that I said tonight. No one showed up last night.” Yep, does that happen where no one shows up?

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yeah, there's—we have Sunday services. Nobody comes back. When I was at a truck stop with a chapel, you could sit in there for however many hours you're open and nobody came in. That's just part of it. You know, not everybody is focused that way, which is—so you get out of the chapel or out of wherever you are, and you go mingle, and you allow yourself to be seen. Like you said. These are the shirts that I wear. They say Chaplain Monte on them. This one says “Truck Stop Ministries.” You're marked so people can see, whether they want to talk to you or not. If you can't give somebody anything, you can always give them a smile, right? And if their smile is genuine and caring, then that's something they can remember, right? Want to be approachable, right?

Speaker 1 (Henry):
So in many ways more and more, even if there is a physical place of the chapel, a chaplain might want to, like, walk around them.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Absolutely. I used to call it making rounds.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Like a hospital.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Like a hospital. You can go—go into the restaurant, go, you know, ask different ones. If they're not overly busy, bus tables before, you know, when the restaurants got busy. Just helping out. And they appreciate that. You know, they like that a lot when you're—when you're—when you don't consider yourself so above them or away from them, and they see you're willing to help them out, you know, if that's good with the management, truck stop management and all that. So just a way of building the credibility, building the trust, letting them know you care about them.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
We were doing a chaplaincy for public school class area, and one of the things that we talked about is how, you know, the public school chaplain ministering to staff might just be helping the third grade teacher read stories to kids—if the schools allow that, you know, just get out there and help. Bust a table, as the example.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
If you're in a shop and the mechanic needs somebody to hold the flashlight—hold the flashlight, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Yeah. Wow. Respect without pressure. Invite, don't impose. Let grace do the work of the persuasion. Your gentleness reflects the heart of Jesus. Building spiritual reputation—let's talk about that once. I think that's fascinating. Your integrity becomes your ministry reputation. Treat staff and drivers with kindness and humility. Shine quietly but consistently. There is such a thing as a spiritual reputation.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yeah, you have to be somebody that they can, in a sense, look up to—not that you put yourself above them by any means. But you have to be—you have to walk the walk. And when you're ministering to them, you're trying to help them walk the walk. So, yeah, it's important.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
It is. And there—and people know you, in a sense, in that spiritual—if I have a spiritual—lot of people don't think about the spiritual things, but then all of a sudden they do. And to know—that was that man you mentioned who, you know, considered suicide, and then the spiritual peace in his heart shifted. Do you see that where just plain being a chaplain has made truckers all of a sudden talk spiritually sometimes?

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yeah, they can be talking about whatever, and then—and you'll see, I guess, conviction maybe. You'll see, or something they're dealing with on the inside, they'll change the conversation to the spiritual side. And then again, that's when you want to be listening and trying to figure out, okay, what is it that's, you know—

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
—bringing this conversation out.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
I know in my chaplaincy works at the country club, they'll often—humor—they'll often like, “Well, Rev, I know you're not going to give me that putt.” And I go, “Oh, take the putt.” Okay. Now then—but sometimes that humorous moment—we go to the tee, it's all full, you're waiting, all of a sudden, you know— “Rev, my girlfriend is cheating on me.” Okay? Like out of the blue. Like a little moment of—they brought the subject of, “Well, Rev, you're not going to give me this putt.” And then, seconds later, all of a sudden, the spiritual was brought up, and boom, it’s there. You find that to be true?

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
So we really are image bearers of God. Our souls, our spirit and our body—and our spirit really is alive in the human. The spirit is searching. There’s an inconsolable longing that is behind the eyes and in a—in a humor, knowing that there's someone to talk to is powerful.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Let's talk when trust is broken. Handle conflict privately and prayerfully. So let’s say you did make a mistake. Apologize quickly when mistakes are made. Let reconciliation be your ministry. So if your brother sins against you, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens, you will have gained back a brother. So have you made mistakes where you just somehow—

Speaker 2 (Monte):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
What did you do?

Speaker 2 (Monte):
I had marital issues early on.

Speaker 1 (Henry):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (Monte):
And I mean, you were the director of her life—gone. You had marital issues, made mistakes—gone.

Henry:

And as a chaplain, that crept into it as well. And so I didn't. There were some people that turned away from me because I was going through issues. They don't expect us to go through issues too, right? And they don't get the whole story right. But so yeah, God is a God of restoration, yeah? And I know that, and I can tell somebody that, because I know he's restored me, right?

So, so when you make a mistake, the it's be transparent about it. But what happens if you make a mistake? Let's say, for some reason, let's say, you know, Sarah mentioned something to you at a truck stop, an employee, and then, unbeknownst to you, which were human, Sarah said something like, yeah, yeah, I called in sick, but, you know, I really, you know, wasn't sick, you know. And then somehow or other, and again, in human things happen, where somehow it got back from you that somehow you said something you shouldn't say, no, you're gonna have to deal with it, because you're the chaplain there, and no one's perfect, and you're gonna leak oil.

So how do you deal with, I mean, your season you've been at, and you leak oil, like I leak oil. So how do you approach when you make a quote, professional mistake, something you didn't want to say or do, but you know you were fatigued or yet. What, how do you what do you do with that?

Monte:

Yeah, because there are times you're tired, you know you're ready to go home, you're out of there, and mentally, you know you're out of there, and you meet somebody at the door, and they've got some deep issues, and you're not always, which is why you have to be prayed up all the time.

So yeah, you can make your own fatigue and the chaplain's fatigue can create mistakes in your listening and what you might say. And if you if that happens, you have to be transparent. You say, you know, I just said this. That's not what I meant, you know, right? Let's backtrack and let's go and let's look at the Scripture, whatever it is, yeah, we're not perfect.

Henry:

In fact, in some ways, it's better to operate in that mode than to operate in the mode where the chaplain is the perfect minister, who, who, whose mouth is always perfect, whose eyes are always perfect, who, who is almost better to reflect a little more of that growing humanity of grace without compromise, rather than to set yourself up as the perfect person all the time, right?

Monte:

No, you don't want to be you don't want to flaunt your imperfection, but at the same time, it's there, and so you want to, when you're talking to somebody, sometimes you kind of feel led to share something you might not share with another person, right? I think that's okay, you know? I hope that's the Holy Spirit when we do that, saying you need to share this story for this person, right? A different one for this person, that type of thing, right?

Henry:

Well, it's funny you write of stories because that's exactly where we're going next. Okay, let's put that right back on so stories that open the heart, stories share, testimonies that inspire hope, not guilt. Stories connect here is faster than arguments. Let your story to invite others. Use your story to invite others into God's story.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reason concerning the hope that is in you with humility and fear.

So we're really getting into stories now, in some ways, how you tell the story about your the grace of your own life speaks a lot about your walk Christianity. So here's where chaplains can really thrive, because you form relationships, you hear stories, you share stories, you hear stories. But Christ can be the center of the stories in a grace filled way.

Monte:

I can tell you for sure that God, God will do this. God walks with you even when you're not walking the way you should be. Because I know, I know it from firsthand experience. And it's not just it's not just book learning, it's not just religious teaching, if you will. It's real life.

Henry:

Yeah, it's real life. And the stories of real life, the stories are real, yep.

Spiritual capital and credibility, trust. We're back to this trust thing. Trust is spiritual currency in chaplaincy, faithfulness, in small things lead to greater impact. Your consistent examples follow influence.

So I'd like to take this slide down this concept of what are like, five or six ways that come to your mind that show that consistency, like, give an example, you know, having a can of WD 40. My dad, that was one of his things, no matter what. My dad believe you could fix anything with WD 40.

Monte:

WD 40 and duct tape, yes.

Henry:

And seriously, he had that. And when he we would, I go to the truck with him a little bit somebody have a problem, and he'd walk out of it, I kid you not. He'd walk out of the truck with a can of WD 40.

Now that was an example of he was building human capital. But they all knew Hank, so I was named after him. Yeah, Hank is one of those believers. Yeah, he would, he would be today. If he knew about this program, he would sign up.

Good, okay, okay, but it's like, but he had a can of WD for what are the ways that you've looked at over the years that you sort of do your rounds in a way that create capital, than spiritual capital? What are some of the things you tell us about one of your rounds. Give us a case study of Monty at work.

Monte:

Well, you go around where we're at right now, we don't have an outside chapel, which, to me, is still important, but not all of them have it.

Number one, everyone. You could be a truck stop chaplain without an outside chapel. I think we've just dispelled a myth here, right?

You don't have to have the chapel. Okay? Like I said, I believe, I believe in the chapel. I think it's necessary. The case in point of the story I told with the driver that was going to end his life.

But so what we do is we have, we're upstairs in the TV room, okay, which is where we have the chapel service. It's right there where the showers are. So you have shower traffic. You have people coming up and waiting for their showers. So you have time to engage those guys that are waiting.

And you know some guys, they'll come in, they'll find out, oh, you're having a service. Well, yeah, you're more than welcome, yeah. So that's, that's one way, is just reaching outside the bounds of the TV room, if you will.

Right to include, and when we see him walking out, you know, even if I'm in the middle of a Bible study or something, hey, come on, join us. Yeah, well, I don't want to be late. You're never late here, you know.

And then we set up a table downstairs, which is in the middle of everything. They come in through the Wendy's, they come in from the fuel island, and then the public comes in this door. So we set a table up here so we can catch all of them.

Nice. And sometimes it's just, you know, good morning. How you doing today? You know, a smile, that kind of thing. Sometimes it's more, well, what do you got here? Well, we got books and Bibles, okay, tracks and armbands and crosses, and it's all free, you know, right?

So, and then sometimes they'll open up right there in the middle of everything at that table and start talking about what's going on in their life.

And then we always greet the employees by name, joke back and forth with banter, yeah, I'm a banter anyway, so that's part of my personality. So I guess that's what I carry with me as one of my tools.

Yeah, go into Wendy's, you know, and we know the employees in there, and I like walking out in the in the parking lot, because drivers are out there. They may be pre tripping, or they may just be checking something on the truck.

We don't, we don't knock on doors if we don't, if we can't get eye contact with the driver, we don't bother them if they see us coming and they duck back in their sleeper. That's, you know, their privacy. And we're right. They're not going to listen anyway if we're chasing them down.

But if we can engage them in the parking lot, I have prayed countless times with drivers in the parking lot. I met this one one time, and he was going through some stuff. His wife was very sick back home, but he couldn't be with her. He had to be out here making the money to pay the hospital bills and the doctor bills, and it was wearing on him.

So if I hadn't been out in the parking lot, I would have never met him that day. So I was able to talk to him about it, and pray with him about it, and hopefully relieve a little bit of that for a few minutes.

Henry:

That's so powerful. So in the end, let your light shine. Your presence is God's invitation to relationship. Yes, relationship shine without forcing that was you're not going to knock on a truck door. Share without fanfare, let God's love speak through every act of kindness.

Smile. Smile.

So I love that, and I think that will end this presentation. Just smile.


Last modified: Wednesday, January 21, 2026, 12:23 PM