Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Commission on Chaplains Director, PCA TE Doug Lee – himself a retired Army Chaplain – recommended this story to the Aquila Report and made the following comment: “I encourages ministers to consider this wonderful ministry model if they are seeking broader ways to share the Gospel.”

Nate Schroder has served as a pastor for most of the last 30 years, but he always considered himself an entrepreneur at heart.

Now, he’s found a way to combine his spiritual calling with a chance to be in business for himself — all rolled into the role of corporate chaplain.

Corporate chaplains have been around for more than 50 years, strengthened by a portion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits religious discrimination in the workplace. Changes to labor laws in 1972 also included requirements that employers make religious accommodations for employees if they do not substantially interfere with business. By the late 1980s, several national organizations had sprung up to provide chaplains and their counseling services throughout the American business scene.

In recent years, as businesses look at ways to cut costs, some have turned to corporate chaplains as an alternative to more traditional employee assistance programs.

Still, until last summer, Schroder had no idea what a corporate chaplain was. Then one of his friends, Joel Nelson, who had been a Christian Missionary Alliance pastor for more than 25 years, began working as a corporate chaplain for Sportech, a motorcycle and snowmobile parts manufacturer in Elk River.

“The more he told me about it, the more I thought, ‘This is for me,'” said Schroder, who was pastor at Discovery Church in St. Cloud for eight years and most recently worked for St. Cloud Children’s Home and Catholic Charities. “I did some research, went on the Internet and tried to answer the question: What is this beast? Too many churches wait for people to come through the doors. With this business I get to go out and meet people on their own turf.”

A few e-mails led him to Boe Parrish, president and co-founder of Corporate Care Inc. Eventually, Schroder decided to launch Corporate Care Services using Parrish’s materials and business model.

“We’ve grown our business by basically giving away franchises,” said Parrish, a former executive with Sprint Communications who runs Corporate Care in Edmond, Okla. “We don’t exactly want competition right here in Oklahoma, but anywhere else in the country is fantastic. We want the concept to grow — not because it’s our business. It’s the Lord’s business. Nate can use all our materials and resources and he doesn’t pay us a cent, unless he should outsource some business to us in Oklahoma.”

Schroder grew up in Moorhead, earned a degree in horticulture from the University of Minnesota-Crookston, and went into the fruit and produce business. Later, however, he felt the pull to seminary and went to Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Ore. He spent five years as a pastor in Oregon and another 15 in Iowa before returning to Minnesota.

He started his business in January and is continuing to build contacts and clients.
“A lot of people, when they hear the term chaplain, they think it’s specifically religious,” Schroder said. “In the corporate world, you’re really like three people rolled into one. You’re a counselor and a life coach in addition to being a pastor.”

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