Today we’re going to talk about spiritual care for drivers and their families. So chaplains provide care for drivers and their beloved ones—faith, prayer, family support—helping sustain life on the road. God’s love connects and heals across every distance.

So when you meet a truck driver, do you, in your mind, think that you are ministering not just to him or her, but to entire families? How conscious are you that that truck driver is connected to a community—not at that truck stop?

I don’t know how conscious I am of it, but it’s true. Because if you’re ministering and you can make a difference in the life of this individual, he or she takes that difference back home to their families, back home to their church, over to the trucking company—wherever it may be that they go.

So the heart goes back to spiritual care begins with listening and compassion. So this is number one in this whole concept of addressing the spiritual needs of the truck driver or the employee of the truck stop. Empathy, presence, love is a foundation—and we’ve talked about that. Then understanding the driver’s life—and we’ve talked about that—long hours, separation, solitude. Faith practices help drivers stay spiritually grounded. Chaplains bring connection and encouragement to the road. So we’ve talked about that.

Just want to say real quick: if you are not coming from a trucking background, that’s okay—but help yourself understand what they go through. Because if you don’t understand it, they may not be willing to talk to you about it.

Okay. Talk to truck drivers that you meet. Just ask them how they’re doing. Just ask them, you know, what do you go through? What are some of the hardships you go through? And let them tell you. Just learn about what they go through, because it will only benefit you if you do so.

Again, back to: how would someone get to know the trucker’s life if you yourself are not a trucker? Now, I know I drove with my dad a few times. I remember one guy named Jack Fisher—he’s with the Lord now. In my first church, he was an over-the-road trucker. He was the most transparent.

I remember he came to our church. He was not a believer. His wife, Lana, was not a believer—and she’s with the Lord now. And I remember we did this phone campaign in 1987, and Lana and Jack came to our church service, and he ultimately became an elder in this church I planted.

But I’ll tell you, I would ride with him in the truck.

Yeah, if you have the opportunity to do that—yeah, great.

It would be so fun to ride with Jack, and he would show me the way things are. Right? I still remember him showing me the way things are.

Truck drivers don’t mind talking to you and telling you about the way things are. So just talk to them.

I just love that—encouraging devotional habits. Encourage daily connection with God through Scripture and prayer. Audio Bibles, devotionals—those help redeem drive time. That’s a good drive. Faith grows when rhythms of worship stay alive. So do you have tools that you give out for Bible reading and all of that?

Not really tools, but we’re always looking for tools. There are devotional books that we recommend. We’ve got the Gospel of John and different things—Daily Breads that they can read, that we can give out. But encouraging them to develop their own devotional life is important. They’ve got to have their own quiet time and relationship with the Lord as they go, right?

One of the things we talk about at Christian Leaders Institute is the Seven Connections of Love, and it goes like this. A relationship with God is talking and listening repeatedly. This relationship was won on the cross by the love of God. He sent His Son into the world, and now we are redeemed and saved into a relationship. And now that relationship, like any relationship, is talking and listening repeatedly.

So you talk and pray. You listen in God’s Word—repeatedly. Like any relationship, you need habits.

And then we talk about how this works in your life:

One, it’s in your personal life—alone.
If you’re married, it’s you, God, and your spouse. How about you praying together?
If you have a family connection—three, it’s in your family. How can opening God’s Word and prayer be in the family connection?
Four would be small groups and friends—how together you can have unity in Christ and pray and read the Bible together on a repeated basis.
And then five is a more complicated form of one, where now the Word—the sermon—is listening to God’s Word, and the prayer is talking to God, but now you do it in a corporate way.
And then the Kingdom connection—six—that’s like what we’re doing here. This whole class and training is a talking-and-listening culture, or training about how to replicate and reproduce a relationship with God. That’s connection six.
And the last connection is seven—and that’s: how can all the world be reached into a relationship of love to God? 

So at CLI, that’s what we teach—how to reproduce that relational culture in its various manifestations, whether it’s from one all the way up to seven. And in a lot of ways, that’s what we’re talking about here: how can—like, if someone is married and a truck driver is married—how do we help that person?

Hey, I got a text. You know, if that person has a relationship, there are ways—here’s the Bible verse to text your wife. Oh, what is that? You know, here’s something for your family. It’s the idea of how to get him or her to be in those Seven Connections of Love, right? What that is, is encouragement. It’s really devotions in a lot of ways. That’s what we call it.

I like to encourage them to have daily devotions with their wives on the phone—still have a devotion, a devotion book you’re going through, or whatever it might be—and pray with them. Have that daily prayer time, even though the miles may separate you, right? Prayer doesn’t—

So phones today—there are great opportunities to have prayer over the phone and all of that stuff. I really do think that we have a great opportunity to help truckers have a very positive family life. Yeah, we do. Sometimes I think we forget how simple it can be.

And that goes back to the calling. If you’re there just for a jewel in your crown, or a preaching point, or to go there, do that, and then go about your own business—it needs to be that calling. You need to have that passion and compassion for truck drivers and truck stop employees as well.

Right—praying with drivers. Prayer centers the heart and restores focus. Offer brief, Spirit-led prayers for peace and safety. Prayer turns every step into a sacred space. The effective and earnest prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective—powerfully effective. Do you actually ask drivers if they would like prayer, or do you?

Yep.

Is that one of the—Is that your most common form of ministry, is prayer?

Yeah, it’s very common. Because when we even just invite them to a service, a chapel service, some of them say, “Thank you,” and that’s all they want. And you can tell that. And others—you feel like the option is just, “Anything we can pray with you about?” right?

Some of them will say, “No, I’m good.” You know what to pray for, for those types—yep.

What do you pray for?

For their salvation, right?

Okay. So when—so “No, I’m good”—that means they’re not accessing the God of the universe. Probably not. Okay?

My suspicion would be, no. Okay. Some of them—just health? “Just pray for good health.” Okay, well, in that prayer for good health, I get to share—Jesus died, He was buried, and He rose again. So thankfully, we worship.

See, back to what you said—an evangelistic little bit, a little bit of an edge there to open the door. Yeah, I love that they get to hear it.

Supporting marriages from a distance. Distance challenges intimacy and communication. Encourage shared prayer—that’s what you just mentioned. Guidance and forgiveness. Healthy marriages thrive on grace and intentionality: with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So, okay—let’s get real: supporting marriages from a distance. Now, as a minister, I’ve seen—I’ve worked with a lot who are in the corporate world. My churches were typically in areas where you had a lot of business people, and they were traveling a lot and everything. So I would try, as a pastor and chaplain, to help them—like, okay, your marriage, even though you travel, your marriage is the centerpiece of your obedience, your faithfulness. You need this. Your spouse needs this. Your children need this.

How do you go about supporting marriages? And again, I’m talking not just in the spiritual way, but what are some of the ways that you’ve helped truck drivers stay married—thrive in their marriage?

Asking them how their marriage is going. Okay? See what opens up—talking to them about marriage. I think I shared earlier the story of the guy that wanted to talk sports, but really he had other issues going on. And at first he was like, “Well, if asking Christ—letting Christ be the boss of my life—means I have to go back to my wife, I’m not interested,” right? You know? And then there’s more—there’s a different direction you can take there.

I remember the other guy—he had left his wife, and he was walking for miles, right? And there’s just no way for this marriage. “I’m tired of it. She’s tired of it. We’re separating,” right? We were able to share Scripture with him, and all of a sudden he goes, “Man, I’ll be right back. I have to go call her.” And he went down and called her, and I happened to be looking out at the right time. And he came running back full speed—flying into the chapel. “Guess what? She’s taking me back. We’re gonna get back together.”

And it’s always just—you know, it makes you feel good, but it’s not me. I mean, it’s just—it’s the sharing that we do. It’s the caring that we do, right? The presence of being there that makes it happen.

Well, and this is one time where truck drivers aren’t really the go-to-seek-counseling type, right? This is just an audience—if we call ourselves counselors, we open ourselves up for lawsuits, for—

But the reality is, truck drivers are not going to even see counselors usually, right? So you are a chaplain, but yet you’re supporting their marriage. This happens in the EMS and fire department chaplains as well. So there’s that dance between, “I’m a chaplain, I’m not a counselor,” but I am into ministry. I am studying. I am into Ministry Sciences. I do believe the role of religion can transform personal lives and marriages.

So in so many ways, this is an opportunity, because these truckers—they’re not usually going to go to a counselor, right? And many of them don’t have time—they’re not home enough to have their pastor. And some of them are God believers in Christ, but they don’t even have a church. So you could become so much of their encouragement. Their ministry coaching could come in the long discussions at truck stops.

Yep—and that’s what happens.

Whether—did you hear that? That is what happens. Whether it’s in the restaurant at a booth, or whether it’s at the truck, or whether it’s in the TV room or chapel, it’s again—it’s being there.

I can’t stress enough—just being there opens the conversations.

Yeah. What are the consistencies? What are the common conversations around marriage nowadays that you hear? For instance, we have courses on communication. We have courses on marriage. We have a marriage ministry course that is four credits—it really deals with everything from communication. We have a sexual intimacy course—two or four credits. We have courses on emotional intelligence, people skills. We have so many courses that might be an option to say, “Hey, truckers, come to Christian Leaders Institute and take a course.” Or do you find that these are the topics they’re talking about?

Not so much. Most of the topics they want to talk about are trucking, church, sports—that kind of thing, right? And that’s why I say you listen for the underlying issues. But yeah, you ask them.

The thing is to be ready. They will be ready—yes—because there will be times when suddenly the door opens, their marriage is hurting, and they want help. And don’t feel like you’re the one who has to fix everything. Know who to refer them to. Make relationships with counselors in the area, or like CLI with online training. Know the avenues to go so you can refer them well.

And that’s the challenge with truck drivers. They might be in another area, or they may come by on a route and start seeing you. Yeah, okay. And they start looking for you.

Do you have that?

They do. They actually start looking for you. Once they’ve spent time with you and they’ve seen that when they’re there, you’re there—and you’re a friendly face, a positive face, a calm face, and you offer good Christian advice—they’ll start looking for you.

That is so fun and fascinating.

Caring for families at home—families experience worry and loneliness too. Provide pastoral care and support when possible. How can you actually support a family that lives 150 or 200 miles away from the truck stop? How would you do that?

Well, you’d have to get to know them. It would take phone conversations, and sometimes being willing to drive and meet them. Ministry is inconvenient sometimes—but that’s okay. It’s worth it.

I think there are ministries that form groups in an area for wives and children, or husbands and children, whose spouse is a driver. They form these groups so people can get together who understand what it’s like when mom or dad is gone all the time. And they can relate to others who understand.

Wow.

Faith conversations with children—parents can disciple from afar with daily calls and voice notes. Encourage Scripture reading and sharing bedtime stories. Spiritual connection bridges distance.

Do you see more husband-and-wife teams now?

There are quite a few, even with young children. There have been couples over the years who had their children with them full-time and were homeschooling them from the truck. History was fascinating because they got to visit all the sites. What a way to learn history.

Interesting.

Ministering during family crisis—family issues and illness affect drivers deeply. Offer listening, guidance, and intercessory prayer. Point families to God’s healing and unity. Again, we see how one person is connected to so many.

Encourage church connection—help drivers and families connect with a local or online church. It’s fascinating. I never thought growing up that online church would be included, but it’s true. Many drivers say, “I’m going to watch it right here in my truck—by myself.”

And again, it speaks to the changing nature of chaplaincy. It’s becoming much more relational, because you don’t get a relationship watching online church. On the other hand, online church is now part of the landscape.

Yep. Like Joel said, you can’t get a hug online.

No, you cannot get a hug online.

We were just having lunch on the day of taping with Jerry and Jewel—long-term truck stop ministers—and Jewel said, “You can’t get a hug from online church.” So true.

Fellowship is important.

Ongoing care and follow-up—spiritual care continues through consistency. In a lot of ways, at this point in the presentation, we’re repeating ourselves—but in different contexts. It’s the same tune with different verses. We’re caring. We’re following up. We’re writing things down. We’re having a database of truck drivers.

Do you do that? Do you keep records?

We do. We keep names, addresses, phone numbers. And for some of the regulars—or some I feel led toward—if we haven’t seen them in a while, we’ll call and say, “Hey, are you doing all right? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Wow. So you actually create mailing lists?

We don’t do formal membership, but we’ll ask, “What’s your name? What’s your email?” We send a monthly ministry newsletter so no matter where they are, they can stay connected. And when they’re in the area, they stop by.

I like that. They’re members of their local church, but in a sense they’re also part of your little parish. They know that truck stop is a place where God is welcome.

That’s right. We’ve never had membership per se, but we do have drivers who adjust their schedules to be at our truck stop because they like the teaching and the care.

So really, as truck stop chaplaincy continues to emerge, there will be new ideas. One of those ideas could be that the truck stop becomes a parish of sorts—a place they identify with, a place they look forward to. Especially if they don’t have anything else nearby, you might be that connection for them.

That’s true. Interesting.

So the closing slide: Faithful Families. Faithful Road. Strong families form the backbone of lasting faith. As chaplains, we do what we can to help people thrive—in their personal life with God, in their marriage, their family, their friends, their church, their kingdom involvement—and help them multiply and reach the world.

In a sense, that’s what all ministers do. And the truck stop chaplain is no different.

That’s right.


آخر تعديل: الأربعاء، 21 يناير 2026، 1:24 م