Our Mission
To educate and empower individuals for innovative interfaith service and spiritual care that heals and transforms the world.
- ChI graduates combine applied theology with the healing arts and spiritual care to invite health and wholeness for all beings.
- ChI embraces mysticism, respecting the soul as a source of revelation that spurs Divine connection, healing and justice-making.
Our Vision
The Chaplaincy Institute is nationally recognized in interfaith education and spiritual formation, inspiring a community of graduates who heal and transform the world by honoring the sacred connection of all.
- ChI’s renowned interfaith chaplaincy and spiritual direction programs equip graduates for spiritual care and social transformation in a changing world.
- ChI is thriving and connected, fostering an Interfaith spiritual identity that connects all paths and wisdom traditions with a commitment to radical inclusivity and service.
Our values
At ChI, we honor these values with our students, our community and ourselves:
- Accessible Inclusion: We invite, respect and support all people who speak to love, dignity and justice.
- A Community of Abundance: We seek and celebrate sustainable abundance in resources and make the necessary financial and technological investments to support our students, faculty, and staff.
- Connectivity: We thrive by practicing radical inclusion of all through a connection with the prophetic and mystical.
- Spirituality: We encourage and empower a connection with the Divine, inviting its fullest expression in body, heart, mind and spirit.
- Accountability: We are accountable to our students and our community by embracing our mission and vision of service and respect for the wholeness of all.
- Educational Excellence: We provide our students with the preeminent Interfaith skills to apply their theology for spiritual formation and care, as they heal and transform the world.
- Sacred Ethical Responsibility: As caregivers, we hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and respect all orientations and spiritual paths.
- Innovation: We facilitate a nimble and flexible culture that promotes innovative interfaith service, spiritual care, and sustainable planning for the future.
“I slept and dreamt life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
WHY INTERFAITH?
Interfaith is both a philosophy and a practice of living in harmony with all of Earth and each other at this critical time in our world, It is a spiritual care approach to healing and transformation in the service of human, social, and environmental restorative justice. Interfaith honors and embraces the common wisdom of all faith traditions and spiritual perspectives to best serve the personal and collective spiritual care needs of a growing “spiritual but not religious” population in a very wide range of community and crisis settings.
WHO WE ARE
Based in Berkeley, California––with satellite groups of interfaith chaplains, ministers, and spiritual directors across the United States––we are comprised of spiritual care educators and providers who come from diverse cultures and origins, all walks of life, and all faith traditions and none. We have created a welcoming, inclusive, and creative spiritual home through our CHI Community and The Chaplaincy Institute seminary. Please see Living Interfaith and Interfaith Providers.
Interested In Learning More About The Origins of CHI ?
CHI was envisioned by clergy from a variety of faith traditions who saw a need for deeper Interfaith dialogue, and for building bridges of understanding across religious divides to bring peace and understanding to today’s world.