She can’t say she wasn’t warned. When Cathy Tisher began serving as a chaplain at Senior Village Nursing Home in Blanchard, Oklahoma, the staff told Cathy they had a “very gruff” resident, and they cautioned her—steer clear. “His name was Robert,” she says, “He was an 89-yearold widower, he had no children, and everybody told me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t talk to him about church or God.’”
“But that just made my antennas go up.”
Call to Service
Cathy Tisher has been a Southern Baptist chaplain serving nursing home residents and staff for more than 22 years, and so it’s hard to believe there was once a time when she would’ve never imagined herself going to speak with someone like Robert in a place like Senior Village. “I used to be like a lot of people,” she says. “If you asked me what I thought of nursing homes, I would’ve been like, ‘Those places tend to have an odor. The residents can sometimes be hard to love. Why would I want to be there?’”
Nursing home chaplaincy was not on a young Cathy Tisher’s career radar until she unexpectedly came face to face with the answer to her “Why would I want to be there?” question.
“I was serving as a hospice chaplain, and lots of people I had to see were in nursing homes,” she says. “And it would always seem to happen—I’d go there, I’d visit with my patient, and then the other patient in the room would say, ‘Come over and talk to me. Come and pray with me. Nobody comes to see me.’ That broke my heart. And then, when I found out that in Oklahoma, 61% of people in nursing homes don’t have anyone coming to see them, I began to sense God calling me to go into nursing homes and serve as a chaplain to the people there.”
Now, decades later, Cathy says, “Out of all the 3,300 or so Southern Baptist-endorsed chaplains, I’m one of the longest-serving ones out there, having been endorsed since 1991. Imagine that.”
Bringing Hope
All those years of experience have taught Cathy how to handle hard cases like Robert. “The first time we met,” she says, “I told him, ‘Hey, I lead some Bible studies and I’d love for you to come,’ and he just said, ‘No.’ Then I asked him, ‘Can I pray with you?’ and again, he just said, ‘No.’ And finally, I asked, ‘Can I come back and visit again?’ and he said, ‘There’s the door. It’s always open. Do whatever you want.’”
That was all the invitation Cathy needed.
Patience and dominoes are what she used to get her spiritual foot in Robert’s proverbial door. “I noticed that the only thing that got him out of his room was playing dominoes,” she says. “And so, I asked him, ‘Can I come and play dominoes with you?’ and just like the gruff old man he was, he said, ‘Whatever you want.’ So, for 12 weeks we played dominoes and I listened to his life story, and he listened to mine.”
“And then on the 13th week, this 89-year-old man asked Jesus into his heart.”
A Day in the Life
Playing a game of Dominoes is not the only unconventional, other-duties-as-assigned-by management task in Cathy’s job description. “Being a chaplain in a care center is not a typical 9-5 job. It’s a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year kind of ministry,” she says. “Yes, there are some things that are planned. I do daily devotions every morning, I bring in church groups and manage their time in the facility, I go room to room and talk with our patients, and if anyone is in the hospital, I go visit them there.”
“But so much of what I do is unplanned.”
“Unplanned” comes with the territory when working with elderly people like Robert. “After he prayed to receive Christ, he asked me, ‘Can you bring me a Bible?’ And so, I did, and then when he started reading it, he would always be coming to me and saying, ‘What does this mean?’ and ‘I don’t understand that.’ We ended up having some really neat gospel conversations.”
Cathy has served the past four years at Village on the Park in Oklahoma City, a 200-resident facility encompassing all levels of care. Cathy formed a nonprofit ministry “Called To Care, Inc.” in 2003, to provide this ministry at no cost to the facilities she serves in. Management considers this a real blessing, since they don’t have budget money to pay for a chaplain.
The Church Behind Her
Cathy Tisher’s typical day, if there is such a thing, is usually filled with all kinds of one-on-one encounters like those with Robert. And yet, she would never attempt to do what she does on her own. “There’s no way I could be a Lone Ranger and do this kind of ministry,” she says. “My church, Southern Hills Baptist in Oklahoma City, supports me in pretty much every way possible.”
Cathy needs funding and pastors and musicians and pretty much every other variety of volunteer a church can provide. “And for the last 20 years, that’s just what Southern Hills has given me,” she says. “My ministry is in their missions budget. They have a rotation of pastors, deacons, and musicians who come and lead Sunday afternoon worship services. And on top of all that, Sunday School classes pray and provide volunteers and donate to the ministry.”
“When it comes to a church being supportive, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
The Greatest Joy
There were dominoes, then gospel conversations, then a gifted Bible, and finally, a funeral that became a fittingly unplanned ending to Robert’s story.
“When he passed away it was one of these situations where, you know how it is, the preacher didn’t really know him, so at the service, he just spoke in generalities. So, before we went to the graveside, I pulled him aside and said, ‘I can tell you don’t know Robert too well, but I do, and I need to tell you—he knows Jesus.’ And the preacher said, ‘Oh, I’m so glad to know that because no one told me.’ Then, at the gravesite, he talked about how Robert had accepted Christ and he shared the gospel with everyone there. It was beautiful.”
It was one of many “beautiful” funerals Cathy’s participated in. Serving as a chaplain at a nursing home means having to say a hopeful, faithful goodbye to lots of friends. “It’s just the way it is,” she says. “I mean, we have four people who are over 100 years old in my facility, and I get close to these people, and it’s sad when they pass away. But this is truly what the Lord has called me to do, so I just keep going.”
“Does it mean I don’t care? No, absolutely not. I go home and cry. But then I remember people like Robert and I rebound, because seeing people come to Christ—that’s my greatest joy.”
A Call to Action
Endorsed SBC chaplains like Cathy are desperately needed in hospitals, nursing homes, and all kinds of other healthcare facilities in communities all across North America. “Being endorsed is so important,” Cathy says. “First, because it puts my name out there so Southern Baptists can pray for me. That’s huge. And second, it gives me credibility. Being endorsed allows me to go where others can’t and share the gospel with people not everyone can reach.”
Learn more about how you can become an SBC-endorsed chaplain.