91PORN

“I am literally praying every day in the parking lot before I walk in because I don’t know what I’m going to walk into,” says Rev. William Mack III, describing his chaplaincy experience. “I’m wired for that. I love that. My wife says I’m wired for chaos. Chaplaincy is this pastoring in the margins, and you never know what you’ll get on any given day.”

In his time at Garrett Seminary’s Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling program, Mack has come to understand his abilities to thrive in chaos and to engage creatively as giftsfor chaplaincy. Over the course of the program, he has completed three units of Clinical Pastoral Education at two different sites. Most recently, he has been working with students in kindergarten through eighth grade at Oakdale Christian Academy, preparing them for a dinner theatre production of The Wiz and using that work to engage them in conversations about identity, community and self-expression. Before that, he worked with a group facilitating peace circles at Stateville Correctional Center, inviting the men there into conversations about peace, reconciliation, and “how, from the inside, they can contribute to the outside.” Mack was able not only to employ his own spiritual direction skills but also taught an introduction to spiritual direction and formation class, at the men’s request. When the state closed the facility in spring of 2025, the heaviness of saying goodbye was both a significant part of his chaplaincy education and a testament to the work he was doing.

“I’ve worked with a lot of men over the last couple years of this degree program,” he said, “holding space for men to be vulnerable and transparent in a moment when the world tellsthem they have to be strong. In those moments, I can just sense God at work there. To hold this brother’s tears, to hear him confess ‘I’m scared’ or ‘I don’t know,’ that’s been a real gift. They have their own pastors, but in that moment, they just needed somebody to be the ear. That’s probably the biggest impact that I’ve had, to hear these brothers dream out loud.”

The other facet of Mack’s chaplaincy education—his coursework at Garrett—has also been a space where students are encouraged to bring their full selves into the classroom. He remembers Dr. Brian Bantum’s class, Art as Theological Practice, as a helpful opportunity “to lean into both the creative and the theological.” In exploring that intersection, using art as spiritual practice and expression, he also came to recognize that he was carrying significant grief and learned skills to process it. That’s the kind of formative experience he has come to expect in the classroom.

“There has not been a class that I’ve taken yet—even in my Bible classes—where we didn’t get the opportunity to look through the lenses of our own context and the context of the people that we serve, which has really been a gift,” he said. “It’s been academically rigorous, but it’s also been an opportunity for me to bring space into it. I’ve leaned into the fact of what it means for me to be an African American male practitioner from the South quite a bit. With some of my queer brothers and sisters, they’ve been able to look through those lenses as well. To be able to bring all of that into the class and then take that back out into our praxis has been a gift. It really has been.”

Experiencing such a fullness of human emotion and diversity of stories has also impacted Mack’s image of God as well as his theological language. He grew up in a tradition with an understanding of God as “big and holy and judgmental,” and not to be questioned. Then, as a pastor, he encountered people dealing with challenges that required a far more expansive understanding of God’s presence in the fullness of human experience. Mack chose Garrett in part because of the diversity of the community, and his experiences here—walking alongside others as a chaplain, swapping stories and support with fellow students—have deepened his appreciation of how God meets people where they are: not with judgment but with love.

“That’s what I’m hoping that people could know,” he said. “Who they are is enough to reflect God’s love into a world that needs a lot of love, that needs a lot of light. In a world that will tell you that you’re not enough or that you’ve got to be more male or you’ve got to be more female or you’ve got to be whatever, I want you to know that you are enough just as God created you. And if you can abide in that and live in that and serve out of that, then that alone is a gift to somebody else. That’s what I’m always trying to share with my kids and extend through my ministry.”

This image of God is not new to Mack, who was raised by his grandmother and, during his time at Garrett, has come to recognize her as his first pastor. She was a model for chaplaincy as she regularly visited the nearby correctional facility to throw birthday parties for the women there and to lead Bible studies. Eventually, she built an apartment in her basement where the women could get back on their feet for a few months after release.

“She was definitely planting seeds in my heart that this is what it looks like to just love and care for people that other people would say don’t deserve it,” Mack said. “I didn’t realize until recently how many of those seeds are coming to fruition now. What I’ve learned over the last couple of years at Garrett has given language to what I experienced in and through her.”