Religious leader visits Combat Center

Photo By Cpl. William Jackson | The 18th Chaplain of the Marine Corps, Rear Adm. Margaret Kibben, speaks with Religious Ministry Teams about deployments and discusses current affairs within the Chaplain Corps at the Combat Center’s protestant chapel May 7.  

CA, UNITED STATES

05.10.2013

Story by Cpl. Ali Azimi 

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. - The 18th Chaplain of the Marine Corps, Rear Adm. Margaret Kibben, visited the Combat Center to speak with Religious Ministry Teams about deployments and discuss current affairs within the Chaplain Corps May 7.

Kibben, who also doubles as the deputy chief of Navy chaplains, visited four RMTs from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment; 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment; Marine Aircraft Group 11 and Combat Logistics Battalion 7 during the Integrated Training Exercise on her West Coast tour of Marine Corps installations.

During this time, she sat in on Cmdr. Steven Moses’ briefing about the hardships and procedures for providing religious ministries during the 4 teams’ upcoming deployments for Operation Enduring Freedom and the Unit Deployment Program.

The four teams’ were taught about the core competencies, to provide, facilitate, care and advise as a religious leader within their unit.

Moses, the Combat Center’s assistant chief of staff for Religious Ministries, said the teams were very happy to have Kibben reach out and offer words of encouragement and tips to be successful religious leaders.

Kibbens also had time to speak with the RMTs and about their career progress, and made sure they set themselves up with the right tools necessary to reach out to the units and provide faith groups with support if necessary.

“As we look at what the Navy and Marine Corps are retracting toward as we wrap up OEF, the mission of the Navy and Marine Corps is going to be humanitarian assistance and disaster relief response,” Kibben said. “It was incumbent on us as religious ministry teams to understand our ministry role for HADRs.

“It’s a different form of ministry,” Kibben said. “For those of you that have been in the Navy prior to 2000, you know that all we talked about was noncombatant evacuation operations, we talked about tsunami relief and we talked about humanitarian assistance. That was our bread and butter. That’s where we find ourselves now.”

• Date Taken: 05.10.2013
• Date Posted: 05.17.2013 13:53
• Story ID: 107133
• Location: CA, US