As we gather in person for the first time since the pandemic, we will enjoy many traditional conference events, including the annual memorial service. This service, created with the help of ACPE members and staff, memorializes members who have died from the time of our last conference to the start of our most current conference. This has remained a constant, even as we gathered virtually during the pandemic. This year, we will remember those who died from May 2022 to May 2023. We will also include a brief look back at those members we honored during our 2020, 2021, and 2022 memorial services. If you would like to view those videos in their entirety, please click here. 

Just a few short weeks ago, the Accreditation Commission met in person in Atlanta for our Spring Leadership Meeting. We had quite a few programs receive continued accreditation and approved the start of several new programs as well. You can see all of the accreditation actions taken here. In addition to our routine business, we continued our work on the updated requirements from the US Department of Education and our compliance report that is due in October.

Once a month the ACPE Professional Ethics Commission (PEC) posts a couple of statements from our Code of Professional Ethics for ACPE Members. Each posting is accompanied by a brief personal reflection from a commissioner of the PEC sharing some ways this person lives these commitments*. May’s statements are

a. Continue professional education and growth, including participation in the meetings and affairs of ACPE.

b. Avoid using knowledge, position, or professional association to secure unfair personal advantage; do not knowingly permit their services to be used by others for purposes inconsistent with the ethical standards of ACPE; or use affiliation with ACPE for purposes that are not consistent with ACPE standards.

Rev. Louis Serio was diagnosed with Brain Cancer and reflected on his life that would be ended soon and wrote his challenges and his memories and reflections of his life that has been shortened.

As a Chaplain, he had widened and deepened his understanding of the stories that we all tell about who we are and what small role we each play in the wider human communities. In his training and study of various schools of Zen Buddhism over the past thirty-five (35) years, he takes solace in the concept of karma.

Clark and Bellous provide a theoretical landscape for spiritual care practitioners. The book includes perspectives on human spirituality, worldview development, the concept of faith, and an approach to encountering otherness that allows practitioners to come alongside people through the complex competency of thick listening at thin moments. Coming alongside is possible due to embodied social engagement that every person can rely on for connecting well with others. Throughout the book, they urge readers to reflect intentionally and mindfully on the personal and social implications of caring for the human spirit.