Highlight: Personal needs in the workplace

Statistics say that 75% of people in the workplace do not have a home church. They may not have someone to talk with about important life issues.

Executive President and CEO of Marketplace Ministries, Inc., Dr. Doug Fagerstrom, discusses important work that this ministry provides to meet the personal needs of people in the workplace.

“We can offer a service to a company where HR often stops. While a company can help maybe with health and wellness, maybe some of the physical aspects of life, and even some emotional care at times, we come along and help with the deep inner needs that employees are struggling with every single day.”

Jesus met the physical, emotional and mental needs of people throughout scripture. As followers of Christ we are called to do the same. Dr. Fagerstrom recounts a healing at the pool of Bethesda from John 5,

“Jesus said, ‘Do you want to get well?’ Here, this crippled man responded to Jesus and said, ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the waters are troubled to receive some healing in my life.’

He compares it with unmet personal needs in the workplace today.

“To me that’s a beautiful, powerful and very sad picture of the workplace today. People don’t have anybody to talk to about what they’re struggling with on the inside; they can’t talk to HR, they can’t talk to their employer, and they can’t talk to the foreman or the boss.”

If people don’t have safe person to talk to, they may never open up about what’s really going on in their personal lives.

“It might be something so deep that it could cost them their job, their position, or the next advancement.”

This is where chaplains step in to provide God’s love, support and care for this individual.

“A chaplain comes along who is non-judgmental; who is a good listener, who is available to hear what they’re going through, and to be there to listen, to pray, to talk it through. To be someone in their life where they have no one to talk to.”

Dr. Fagerstrom highlights the benefits of relationships that are built through Marketplace Ministries.

“We can provide that kind of personal care that’s not only in the workplace itself, but when an employee calls the chaplain and says,

‘Hey, chaplain, could I meet with you for coffee at Starbucks?’

‘We’re down at the hospital right now my daughter slipped and fell and they’re doing surgery on a on a broken bone and a chaplain is there within the hour.’

“Our chaplains serve 24-7, not just in that work environment, but even to the hospital to the funeral home to home itself to meet the needs of people who have no one.”


Dr. Douglas L. Fagerstrom, a distinguished ministry leader, prolific author and visionary thinker is the Executive President and CEO of Marketplace Ministries, Inc., the original, largest and leading workplace chaplaincy organization.

Marketplace Chaplains