Illustration by Charity Ellis
An interview with Heidi Kugler, advisor for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, by Assistant Professor of the Practice of Chaplaincy and Community Development Mary Glenn.
Mary Glenn: What are some of the elements that make up your ethical framework?
Heidi Kugler: I have been serving in prison ministry in a variety of capacities since 1996. I am an ordained United Methodist minister who served as a parish pastor before I entered full-time endorsed prison chaplaincy with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in 2002. Currently, I am the national chaplaincy administrator for BOP, where I provide oversight to the chaplaincy services departments in 121 federal prisons nationwide.
My personal and professional ethical framework is rooted in my Christian faith and interfaith chaplaincy clinical background. I lead out of the belief that we are all welcomed and loved unconditionally by God regardless of what we have done or left undone.
When I run into conflicts of any kind, I pause and pray. My staff and colleagues often hear me say, “One issue, one prayer at a time.”
MG: What helps you to hold in tension your faith and identity as a chaplain and the pluralistic prison contexts where you serve?
HK: While BOP chaplains lead out of our own faith tradition, we are also employed to ensure the legally protected religious rights of all those in federal custody across faith lines as well as those who claim no religious affiliation. BOP chaplains also provide faith-based reentry opportunities, initiatives, and programming.
Personally, I have never found tension in serving as a Protestant Christian chaplain in a religiously diverse prison environment. On the contrary, I have discovered greater spiritual strength, power, and unity within the pluralistic interfaith prison context.
I seek to hold myself and all those who serve with me accountable to practice spiritual self-care so we may protect and nurture our individual personal faith and identities as chaplains. I am convinced to the depth of my being that guiding others in faith requires us to be spiritually filled up ourselves.
I counterbalance my personal and professional tiredness, stress, and emotional reactions with regular worship, prayer, journaling, meetings with my spiritual director, and attendance at spiritual retreats. Prioritizing wellness practices—exercise, quality time with family and friends, regular daily breaks to rest and be renewed, a sense of humor—helps me keep perspective so I can keep pressing on for the good of this work and ministry.
MG: Where and how do you build bridges within the prison system between chaplains, staff, and incarcerated people?
HK: Agency chaplains have the dual role of correctional workers who are federal law enforcement officers while also representing the Almighty as religious services providers and experts. We must work diligently to earn the respect and trust of our chain of command, the wider community, and the incarcerated we serve. There are daily opportunities to be means of grace, peace, and healing to the incarcerated, agency employees, and the public. It is a true gift to promote greater restoration, reconciliation, and renewal for so many.
MG: In your chaplaincy context, where do you collaborate with others? What are some of your best practices for doing so?
HK: The Chaplaincy Services Branch collaborates everywhere and anywhere to best meet the religious, pastoral, and faith-based reentry needs of those in federal custody. Building coalitions is a continual best practice and one of our spiritual superpowers. We are so much stronger when we work together in community. We partner with wider faith communities and nonprofits through the Community Reentry Network (CRN), a national database of community and mentoring resources we initiated under the First Step Act to connect current incarcerated individuals and returning citizens with reentry resources for successful community reintegration.1 We also work collaboratively with religious leaders, community chapel volunteers, theological schools, and professional chaplaincy organizations so that our institutional chapel worship services, faith-specific sacred scripture studies, and faith-based reentry programming reflect the most current community religious practices, scholarship, and innovation.2 In terms of the recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining agency chaplains and chaplaincy services support staff, we partner with seminaries, Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programs, and our religious endorsers to provide field education and clinical internship opportunities.3
Heidi Kugler is a graduate of the College of Wooster with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and minors in religious and Africana studies. She earned her MDiv with a specialization in biblical studies from Boston University School of Theology. Kugler is an ordained elder from the Greater NJ Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, a certified correctional chaplain, and serves as an advisor for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab and Clinical Pastoral Education, International. Prior to entering federal service, she served as a parish pastor and a chaplain at a county jail and state prison in New Jersey.
Mary Glenn is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Chaplaincy and Community Development.
An interview with Heidi Kugler, advisor for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, by Assistant Professor of the Practice of Chaplaincy and Community Development Mary Glenn.
Mary Glenn: What are some of the elements that make up your ethical framework?
Heidi Kugler: I have been serving in prison ministry in a variety of capacities since 1996. I am an ordained United Methodist minister who served as a parish pastor before I entered full-time endorsed prison chaplaincy with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in 2002. Currently, I am the national chaplaincy administrator for BOP, where I provide oversight to the chaplaincy services departments in 121 federal prisons nationwide.
My personal and professional ethical framework is rooted in my Christian faith and interfaith chaplaincy clinical background. I lead out of the belief that we are all welcomed and loved unconditionally by God regardless of what we have done or left undone.
When I run into conflicts of any kind, I pause and pray. My staff and colleagues often hear me say, “One issue, one prayer at a time.”
MG: What helps you to hold in tension your faith and identity as a chaplain and the pluralistic prison contexts where you serve?
HK: While BOP chaplains lead out of our own faith tradition, we are also employed to ensure the legally protected religious rights of all those in federal custody across faith lines as well as those who claim no religious affiliation. BOP chaplains also provide faith-based reentry opportunities, initiatives, and programming.
Personally, I have never found tension in serving as a Protestant Christian chaplain in a religiously diverse prison environment. On the contrary, I have discovered greater spiritual strength, power, and unity within the pluralistic interfaith prison context.
I seek to hold myself and all those who serve with me accountable to practice spiritual self-care so we may protect and nurture our individual personal faith and identities as chaplains. I am convinced to the depth of my being that guiding others in faith requires us to be spiritually filled up ourselves.
I counterbalance my personal and professional tiredness, stress, and emotional reactions with regular worship, prayer, journaling, meetings with my spiritual director, and attendance at spiritual retreats. Prioritizing wellness practices—exercise, quality time with family and friends, regular daily breaks to rest and be renewed, a sense of humor—helps me keep perspective so I can keep pressing on for the good of this work and ministry.
MG: Where and how do you build bridges within the prison system between chaplains, staff, and incarcerated people?
HK: Agency chaplains have the dual role of correctional workers who are federal law enforcement officers while also representing the Almighty as religious services providers and experts. We must work diligently to earn the respect and trust of our chain of command, the wider community, and the incarcerated we serve. There are daily opportunities to be means of grace, peace, and healing to the incarcerated, agency employees, and the public. It is a true gift to promote greater restoration, reconciliation, and renewal for so many.
MG: In your chaplaincy context, where do you collaborate with others? What are some of your best practices for doing so?
HK: The Chaplaincy Services Branch collaborates everywhere and anywhere to best meet the religious, pastoral, and faith-based reentry needs of those in federal custody. Building coalitions is a continual best practice and one of our spiritual superpowers. We are so much stronger when we work together in community. We partner with wider faith communities and nonprofits through the Community Reentry Network (CRN), a national database of community and mentoring resources we initiated under the First Step Act to connect current incarcerated individuals and returning citizens with reentry resources for successful community reintegration.1 We also work collaboratively with religious leaders, community chapel volunteers, theological schools, and professional chaplaincy organizations so that our institutional chapel worship services, faith-specific sacred scripture studies, and faith-based reentry programming reflect the most current community religious practices, scholarship, and innovation.2 In terms of the recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining agency chaplains and chaplaincy services support staff, we partner with seminaries, Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programs, and our religious endorsers to provide field education and clinical internship opportunities.3
Heidi Kugler is a graduate of the College of Wooster with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and minors in religious and Africana studies. She earned her MDiv with a specialization in biblical studies from Boston University School of Theology. Kugler is an ordained elder from the Greater NJ Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, a certified correctional chaplain, and serves as an advisor for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab and Clinical Pastoral Education, International. Prior to entering federal service, she served as a parish pastor and a chaplain at a county jail and state prison in New Jersey.
Mary Glenn is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Chaplaincy and Community Development.
Sean Love, director of clinical training and assistant professor of clinical psychology, reflects on the Spirit-led and healing work we undertake as we journey with others in their suffering.
