When someone is in crisis, my instinct is to:

Offer a Bible verse or prayer right away.

Try to fix the underlying problem.

Listen, then steer toward hope.

Sit quietly until they speak first.

Be present without an agenda; let silence do its work.

I'm asked to minister to someone whose faith I strongly disagree with. I feel:

Conflicted; I would want to share what I believe.

Open, if they invite spiritual conversation.

Comfortable — care comes first, theology second.

Energized; this is exactly where chaplaincy works.

A confidentiality breach by me would:

Be understandable in extreme cases.

Be reserved for safety-of-life only.

End my ministry — and I would want it to.

At 3 AM, after a fatal scene, I'm able to:

Barely function; I take days to recover.

Function, but I carry it heavily for weeks.

Stay grounded with prayer and support.

Maintain pastoral presence in the moment, then debrief.

Stay clear-headed, hand over to next-of-kin support, and return home whole.

I am comfortable around law enforcement officers:

Not really — it's a different world.

Including ride-alongs and on-scene work.

I have spent significant time on patrol, in stations, or in agency culture.

My theology of suffering is:

Strong and articulate — I can explain it.

Clear, but I would soften it in care settings.

Held quietly; I rarely share it on scene.

Mostly silent in pastoral care — I listen first.

Held but not preached; presence is the theology.

When a survivor lashes out at God, I:

Stay; absorb; let the anger be heard.

Sit with them and let it be holy ground.

My capacity for ambiguous, unresolved situations is:

Strong — I can hold the unknown.

High — most of pastoral work is unresolved.

Very high — I have made peace with not having answers.

I would not proselytize on duty, even when invited, because:

I disagree — invited evangelism is fine.

It compromises the chaplain role.

It would break trust with everyone else I serve. I won't.

My current support system (spouse, peers, supervisor) is:

Strong, with regular check-ins.

Robust, with pastoral supervision and a confidential peer circle.

I'm called to chaplaincy because:

It's an extension of my pastoral work.

I sense a specific call to public-safety ministry.

God has put this on me, and others have confirmed it.

I cannot not do this. I have tested it; it holds.

How available am I — realistically — for 2 AM calls?

Reliably, with backup coverage.

Am I Called to Chaplaincy? — Free Discernment Quiz

Am I called to chaplaincy?

A 12-question pastoral discernment quiz from Dr. Themba M. Mzizi, Ph.D.

This is not a personality test. It is the set of questions Dr. Mzizi would ask a candidate before recommending them into a chaplaincy program. Your result is pastoral, not pass/fail — every band has a next step.

Your next steps

How to read your result

There are no failing scores here. A low score does not mean you are unsuited to ministry; it usually means you are suited to a different part of it, or that you are earlier in the process than the question set assumes. Several of the most effective chaplains Dr. Mzizi has worked with would have scored in the middle band the year before they started.

What the score is actually tracking is the gap between two instincts. Pastoral ministry rewards the impulse to explain, to comfort with words, to bring a situation back to meaning. Crisis work frequently punishes all three, and rewards the ability to stay present and say very little. Neither instinct is better. But the second one is harder to acquire late, which is why it is worth knowing which one is yours before an agency is depending on it.

What this is not

Twelve questions cannot confer a calling or withhold one, and nothing here substitutes for the judgement of people who know you and have watched you work. Treat the result as a prompt for a conversation with a mentor, a supervisor, or a spouse, not a verdict. It is worth retaking after any significant exposure to crisis work — a first ride-along, a first death notification, a first debrief — because the answers people give before and after that exposure are often very different, and the second set is the more honest one.

If your result points toward chaplaincy, the honest next step is understanding what the vocation actually asks — the distinction between pastor and chaplain is where that starts, and Called to Serve, Trained to Care is where it is worked through properly.

Am I called to chaplaincy?

Your next steps

How to read your result

What this is not

Field notes from 43 years of ministry — once a month.