The Chaplain Resource Network
A shared resource network that equips institutions, organizations, and denominations to train chaplains with credible, practical, field-ready content.
What CRN Is
The Chaplain Resource Network (CRN) is a DBA and initiative of the Marsh Institute for Chaplains (MIC). CRN develops high-quality training content once and delivers it broadly, so training organizations can equip chaplains without building every resource from scratch.
Across the chaplaincy ecosystem, seminaries, endorsing bodies, denominational leaders, and chaplain organizations face the same bottleneck: rising demand for chaplains and a shortage of consistent, credible training. CRN closes that gap with a shared catalog of courses, lessons, guides, and certificates, built for real-world ministry and structured for CE credit through Clinical Pastoral Education International.
Chaplain resourcing, reimagined.
The Federation
CRN is carried forward by a federation of four founding organizations. Each is a distinct ministry with its own calling and governance. The federation is a bond of mission and friendship, not a chain of command, and each organization keeps its own identity, doctrine, and operations.
Marsh Institute for Chaplains
MIC · Parent of CRN
Trains, equips, and credentials chaplains. CRN is an initiative of MIC.
Clinical Pastoral Education International
CPEI
Delivers continuing pastoral education and clinical formation, and issues CE credit.
Community Chaplain Network
CCN
Networks chaplains in the field and supports them in their day-to-day work.
Hope Thru Faith Foundation
HTF
Carries family-centered care into the homes and communities chaplains serve.
Our Covenant of Service
The founding organizations serve one another and the chaplains they equip under a Covenant of Service. The posture is simple and it governs how we work together and how we build:
How may I serve you today? I am here to assist you to fulfill your mission.
We count others more significant than ourselves, honor each member's distinct calling, hold the work with open hands, and keep the mission in view. That same posture shapes every course, lesson, and tool CRN produces.
Leadership
Ken Schlenker
Director of Resource and Network Operations, Chaplain Resource Network (a dba of the Marsh Institute for Chaplains); Board Member, MIC
Ken Schlenker serves as Director of Resource and Network Operations for the Chaplain Resource Network (CRN), a dba of the Marsh Institute for Chaplains (MIC), and as a Board Member of MIC. Through a federation of partner organizations, CRN equips chaplains with field-ready training across healthcare, crisis response, public safety, and community contexts.
Ken holds an M.Div. from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, a BS in Healthcare Administration from Southern Illinois University, and an AAS in Medical Laboratory Technology from Northern Virginia Community College, with additional Histotechnology training at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Walter Reed Army Hospital. He served as a Corpsman in the United States Navy.
Across more than 30 years in ministry, Ken has worked as a pastor, public safety chaplain, and crisis interventionist for first-responder populations. He authored the California POST Basic Law Enforcement Chaplain Course and the PracticalChaplaincy curriculum during his work in public-safety chaplaincy in California. From 2017 through 2025, Ken served as Assistant Professor and Director of Chaplain Programs at Grace School of Theology, where he created the undergraduate through doctorate degree programs in Chaplaincy (ATS and TRACS accredited). He founded CAREForce in 2001, now part of the Marsh Institute for Chaplains.
Ken is a LivingWorks Master Trainer (ASIST, safeTALK, suicideTALK, Suicide to Hope, LivingWorks Faith), a California POST Master Instructor, and an approved instructor with the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation and the Resiliency Science Institute. He serves as chaplain with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and is co-founder of the Montgomery County Behavioral Health and Suicide Prevention Task Force.
Ken is a Diplomate of the National Center for Crisis Management and the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, and is Board Certified in Crisis Chaplaincy, Emergency Response, and Stress Management. He received the Presidential Services Award from President George W. Bush in 2008.
Ken and his wife Brenda were married in 1980 and live in Conroe, Texas, with their son. Their daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live in Huntsville, Texas.
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