The first time they saw him there—at a car dealership of all places—the salespeople, the technicians, and all the guys in the parts department must have thought Ray Haught was in the wrong place.
After all, when he showed up for work on day one— “I told people what I was there for,” he says, “and some of them didn’t know what to do with that”—he was defying everyone’s known chaplain stereotypes.
“One guy, still to this day, sees my name badge that says ‘Chaplain’, and he calls me ‘Father’—I guess he kind of thinks of me like ‘Father Mulcahy’ from the TV show M*A*S*H. And I tell him, ‘I’m not a Catholic, but as long as you and I can talk about Jesus, you can call me whatever you want.’”
A (Work) Day in The Life
For the past several years, Ray Haught has served as a Southern Baptist corporate chaplain for the Cable Dahmer Automotive Group in Kansas City, Missouri.
“It’s a pretty unique opportunity,” he says. “A Southern Baptist chaplain serving at a car dealership is probably not what most people think of as the norm. But Cable Dahmer’s owner is a strong Christian, and he brought me on because he says if his 1,100 employees aren’t paying attention to their spiritual well-being, everything else is going to suffer.”
Ray Haught’s typical workday begins before the sun comes up, when he leaves his home and begins the long drive to whichever one of the nine Cable Dahmer dealerships he’s visiting that day. “Most of them are at least an hour away, and I want to get to the store by 7 a.m. when they open,” he says.
When Ray arrives, there’s no shortage of people to talk to and things to talk about. “I go to the service department, I talk to the techs, I talk to the parts guys, I sit in on sales meetings, I go to accounting—I’m there for several hours just talking to people. Sometimes we’ll talk about football or fishing, sometimes we’ll talk about family, and I know that might not sound like much, but over the past couple of years, the workers at these dealerships have gotten to know me and figured out that I genuinely care for them.”
“Now, God’s opened doors for me to really minister to people where they’re at.”
Workplace = Mission Field
Corporate chaplains like Ray do truly meet people, as he says, “where they’re at.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 163.6 million Americans are employed, and those workers spend, on average, 22% of their waking hours on the job.
“The workplace is where the people are,” Ray says, “and I realize that being a corporate chaplain is not like being a hospital, prison, or disaster relief chaplain. Most of the people I meet are not at the end of their rope. But everybody, no matter who or where they are, is stressed and anxious about something. Lots of the employees I talk to are just trying to make ends meet.”
“Add to that the fact that lots of people in the workforce today have no exposure to the gospel, they know nothing about the Bible, and they have no connection to a local church. Even at my dealerships, if I were to tell somebody, ‘You need Jesus because you’re a sinner,’ many of them would look at me like I was crazy and say, ‘What’s a “sinner”?’”
“The workplace is a mission field like no other.”
Unique Challenges, Unique Connections
A mission field like no other presents challenges like no other. “One of the hardest things I have to deal with is time,” Ray says. “When I talk with someone at one of our dealerships, I’m taking them away from their work. Sometimes, someone else might even have to fill in for them, especially if it’s a tech working on a car and a customer is waiting.”
“I have to be sensitive to that, and if we’re talking about something important, there have been times when I’ve had to just throw a Band-Aid on whatever issue they might have and come back and do surgery later.”
When Ray says “surgery,” he’s referring to chaplain/employee gospel conversations that sometimes stretch out over weeks, months, or even years. “Getting to be here in the trenches with people long-term, God uses that to build some pretty powerful connections,” he says. “Like several months ago, a manager at one of our dealerships came to me and said, ‘Hey, you really need to talk to one of my guys. I’m concerned about him.’”
“So I went to this guy, and we started talking. And after a long while, he came to me one day and said, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversations, and last Sunday I decided to go to church.’ That was so great to hear. But then, even better, just a few weeks ago, his manager, who’s a believer, came up to me and said, ‘Hey, this guy’s on vacation this week, but I want to show you this picture,’ and it was a picture of the guy getting baptized.”
“I love those moments.”
Endorsed and Connected
Because Ray Haught is an endorsed Southern Baptist chaplain, moments like that can lead more easily to next steps. “I’ve had the opportunity to lead six people here to Christ, and that’s great, but it can be hard to disciple somebody in this setting,” he says. “Fortunately, I’m part of the SBC, and that means I have connections. We have a Cooperative Program. So, when somebody at one of our dealerships makes a decision for Christ, I can contact our local associational office and say, ‘I’ve got someone at a dealership in, say, North Kansas City, and they need a good church to get plugged into.’ They’ve been a great resource for that.”
“And that’s not the only thing. The trainings and webinars I’m able to participate in as a Southern Baptist chaplain are so important. They’ve helped make me so much better at doing what I do. That’s been one of the best things about being endorsed, because I love to learn.”
The Renaissance Man
Ray Haught, lifetime learner, has worn many hats. “I’ve been a truck driver, I’ve worked in construction, I was a heavy equipment operator, I served ten years in the military,’ he says. “Even now, in addition to being a corporate chaplain, I pastor a small country church, and they’re such a blessing—I can’t always be at every function or church event because my chaplain role is pretty time-consuming, but they’re so supportive and understanding.”
Now, as a Southern Baptist corporate chaplain looking back on a lifetime of diverse occupations, he’s learned that sometimes, the last place people expect you to be is the very place God calls you to. “If I could tell people anything, I’d say, ‘throw away all your preconceived notions about what a chaplain is or does,’” he says. “I mean, look at me. Here I am at a car dealership.”
“People who need Jesus are everywhere, and this is exactly where God has called me to be.”
Learn more about how you can become an SBC-endorsed chaplain.