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A space for all of us seeking what's real and sacred in a world that rushes past the soul.
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A Chaplain’s Playbook For A Christ-Centered Mission
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We welcome Father Rogers Meredith to share how a Christ-centered approach shapes chapel, discipleship, and daily care at Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County. He traces his path from life on the margin to priesthood and lays out a practical blueprint for preaching, Alpha, and volunteer service that restores dignity and keeps Jesus first.
• Christ-centered as the baseline for decisions and preaching
• The structure and purpose of 35 weekly chapel services
• Vetting, auditioning, and guiding chapel speakers via a lectionary
• Why testimony is not the sermon and Scripture leads
• Alpha’s listening model and its impact on dignity and belonging
• Deeper formation through Kingdom Agenda and Authentic Manhood
• The role and value of a dedicated women’s chaplain
• A call for volunteers and a charge to be doers, not hearers
Please register as a volunteer on the UGM website, complete the background check and orientation, and let the UGM-TC Volunteer Coordinator know you want to be a chapel speaker
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00Welcome home, hear us now, a space for all of us, seeking what's real and sacred in a world that rushes past the soul. My name is Eric Engelman. I'm co-host, and with me is President and CEO Charles Wolford.
SPEAKER_02Eric, my friend and my brother, it's so always good to be here and to have the moment to share with you on this amazing podcast here at Union Gospel Mission of Tarrane County. And today is no less exciting. We have an amazing guest with us. We're super excited to have Father Rogers Meredith with us. Father Rogers, welcome to the Welcome Home Hear Us Now podcast. Thanks for having me. There's a rounding ovation of your presence here. So resounding ovation as it would be. Good to have you, Father Rogers. Good to be here. Thanks.
What Christ-Centered Really Means
SPEAKER_02One of the areas that has been a common point of discussion at Union Gospel Mission is our Christ-centered philosophy over the last 137 years. And as we have made that central to who we are, Father Rogers, would you help anchor us in that dialogue? You are the chaplain in your role. Help us with what you do. How do you execute this missional movement of being Christ-centered at UGM and unpack it for what you do and your role and how that brings to bear the Christ-centeredness of what we do at Union Gospel Mission?
SPEAKER_01Sure, I'll give that a shot. I guess when I think about that, think about your question, Christ-centered is more of a presupposition. In other words, it's underneath everything that we do, everything that we think about. We want to make sure we do our very best. And I say we as a chaplaincy team, and I think extends that to the whole mission. We want to keep Christianity and Christ at the middle of what we do. So that works out in a lot of different ways. We want chapel services that are Christ-centered, where Jesus Christ is the main thing. We want to make sure that we are exalting Jesus Christ. You don't ever want to get in a pulpit and in a church or a chapel, wherever you're at, and preach a sermon that any good Iman or rabbi could have preached. Right? You want it to be a Christian sermon. How we decide what we should do, what's right, and what's wrong. When we say Christ-centered, we also mean biblical.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You really can't take those two apart. Being Christian is the main thing, is keeping everything Christian. It's a big word. And it impacts in a lot of different ways. Specifically, it's being Christian in everything we do, and let Christianity be our first presupposition, not secular world and things like that. We want to be intentionally Christian, intentionally Christ-centered.
SPEAKER_02Amen.
Father Rogers’ Journey To Ministry
SPEAKER_02And and I wanted to start there with you as a point of our dialogue because the work that we do and the vineyard that God has placed us in is the vineyard union gospel mission, which is primarily focused on helping our unhoused neighbors find housing. But for you specifically, let's talk about who Father Rogers Meredith is and how did you end up at this an amazing organization?
SPEAKER_01Well, so I'm from Austin, Austin, Texas. There's been a member of my family living in Austin for over a hundred years. And I grew up in the church. I was baptized at St. David's Episcopal Church in Austin, which is still one of the most prominent churches in Austin, although they've gone a little different direction than I have. I was away from the church for a number of years, starting about probably 16 to almost in my 30s. I did things like pray and stuff like that when I'm basically pretty much when I got in trouble. You know, I always remembered, I remembered the church, I remembered God, I remembered Christ, not just God in some ambiguous way. In the mid-80s, there was a big economic downturn in central Texas. And I was in the construction business. That led me to go to Florida. So in Central Florida, I was out of my support network, didn't know anyone there. I just, I mean, as a young fellow, right? Young guys will do that. They'll jump on a bus and go somewhere with you know, just clothes on their back some tools. That's what I did.
SPEAKER_02It almost sounds like a Luke 15 story almost. But it didn't sound like you were prodigal, it just sounded like you just needed a new experience.
SPEAKER_01I was done with Austin. Okay. I was done with Austin. I couldn't make a living. I mean, when you can't make a living, what's the point of sticking around, right? Okay. So I didn't have I didn't feel like I had anything to lose. I wasn't afraid. I've never been afraid to do something different. So I ended up in Orlando, and um I wouldn't say I was necessarily homeless, but I lived very very close to that. So it amongst the marginalized, right? Central Florida was a lot different then than it is today, and it's even different than what we have here in Lancaster. I mean, Florida has a long-standing transient population, people that go back and forth from the east, you know, up north, back down south. And there's a lot of things uh that are there, places you can rent rooms or rent a bunk like, you know, and there's day labor. That's the kind of stuff I did. Oh, wow. That's the kind of I did that stuff for probably four or five years. And so I lived, I lived at that level of society. It didn't bother me, and I'm not ashamed of it. During that, I did see how things were for people that didn't have anyone to speak up for them. I mean, you really were at the mercy of circumstances more than you are even now. The police in that part of the world at that particular time did not like people like me and the thousands of other people like me that were on the streets, they'd throw you in jail at a heartbeat. You know, that's just the way it was. Crack hone, crack cocaine had just hit Central Florida too. Oh wow. You know, it was it was definitely a a different environment. Fast forward from there, probably close to 10 years. That's about 25 when I got there. Um, I'm back in Austin and I started thinking about where I was in life. And having grown up a Christian, I thought, you know, I I think I should go back to church. I want to go back to church. And so I I did something that probably a lot of folks have done. This is, I would say not the best way to do things, but it doesn't mean you can't do it. I asked the Lord, I said, Lord, I don't know what church to go back with. I didn't think about going back to the Catholic Church, is with the Catholic Church, which is where I was raised. It didn't have any problem with the Catholic Church. It just, I mean, Roman Catholic Church, it just never crossed my mind. So I said, Lord, I'm gonna pick three names out of the phone book. Just is for real, man. I picked three names out of the phone book, I'm gonna call all three of those churches and let the church that you want me to go to be the one to call me back. So the only person calling me back was uh Reverend Jackson Boyet. Oh wow. So I ended up Day Spring Fellowship in Austin, down by the University of Texas Capitals. It was from there, it was in that church I met my wife. Oh wow. And it was from there I went to seminary. Okay. So my desire in going to seminary was because I had a we were doing street ministry and stuff while I was in church there. I wanted to go, I wanted to go to seminary, get it, get an education, get a degree, and come back and start a mission in Austin. Just like pretty much what we do at UGM.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But now I remember now I'm like 35 years old at this point.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So I'm still pretty young. Yeah. So I go to seminary, got sidetracked and got into the pastoral ministry. I I had never even preached a sermon when I got to seminary. Never, not even once. Wow. I had no, I didn't think I needed to be able to I was gonna need to preach because I was going to be doing something completely different, right? But I did get into the pastoral ministry, went into the pastoral ministry, ended up becoming an Anglican priest at length, and we're jumping way ahead now, right? I've been an Anglican priest now for a little over ten years. And then three years ago, I was an interim rector at St. Francis in Austin. Uh when that was winding down, I decided I wanted to get back into ministry full-time,
Life On The Margins And Return To Church
SPEAKER_01and the bishop came to install the new rector, and I said, Hey, I'm gonna look, I'm looking for a place, and he brought up Union Gospel Mission. So I made a big circle. And I started out and then almost 30 years, 25, 26 years later, after I started out, didn't do what I was gonna do, made a big circle, and then landed back here doing what I started out to do. Wow. And I'm in a pastoral ministry as well, too. So I mean, yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_02And so you've now been at UGM Terran County for two years. Two years, that's right. Wonderful. What a blessing. Um so let's just talk through what you what's your functional role at Union Gospel Mission. What is a chaplain at UGM, what does a chaplain do?
SPEAKER_01The first thing that this that I do when I get in my office in the morning, just put it that way, is I check my email. I'm like, now what's happened? I get out of my email, of course. What's broke? What oh nothing. Okay. Next thing, chapel schedule. Right? What's the chapel schedule look like? Is anybody we have 35 chapel services a week here. Has anybody canceled them? Do I need to fill I've always tried to stay ahead of the chapel service, right?
SPEAKER_02Can we just plug into that a moment? So 35 chapel services a week. Right. Just unpack that a little bit. That is an amazing fee. We know that our co-host is one of the chapel speakers. Uh we we we are blessed by you know so many, but just unpack that thought just a long, because I think our listeners may not be aware of what that really looks like to have 35 chapel services.
SPEAKER_01Well, that you know, there's a little bit of a story there. So my boss is very demanding about who I led the chapel, right? So like you don't want what you don't want is stories on the channel. What you don't want is your boss coming up to you and saying, Have you heard the chapel speaker? Because that's never good, right? So part of that, the thing what I had to start out by doing was betting all the chapel speakers. So when I got here, there hadn't really been, and like I say, no one was minding the store because that's not really true. There had been a little bit of a vacuum there. We had they hadn't had a chaplain for a while. And I was under the impression I got here, I was I set in on about three or four services. I thought, oh, it sounds like you know most of the speakers are pretty good. Well, as time went on, we discovered that we do have a lot of really good preachers, but we also need to do some we need to really do some some reigning in and making sure that we're where we're at. We need to be. So that was a big part of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I hear one of your main priorities and responsibilities is oh superintending and attending to the 35 chapel services, making sure that there's an actual speaker. So um our lovely co-host Eric Engelman is one of the chapel speakers. So who is allowed to do chapel services at Union Gospel Mission?
SPEAKER_01If you uh have been able to successfully uh pass a background check and all that stuff, you've gone through that level of vetting, two things have to happen. You have to be interviewed by the chaplains, okay, and then you've got to do an audition. Okay. You've got to preach a chapel service.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So do I have to be a preacher to do that?
SPEAKER_02You have to have the ability to preach. You have to have the ability, but I don't have to be so-called a pastor or having gone to school. No, you could be a layperson. So anyone's listening to the podcast, if they have interest in doing a chapel service, they could sign up and do the audition and would then be allowed to do the service. So how does that work with the sign-up? Is there a sign-up sheet? How would someone get on the list to be a chapel speaker?
SPEAKER_01How does that work? Sure. You go to the UGM website, register as a volunteer, go through the volunteer process, do the background check, do volunteer orientation, you let our volunteer coordinator, Dana Walser, know that you want to be a chapel speaker. Okay. And then she'll contact me or send you my way. Okay. And then we'll arrange to get the rest of it done.
SPEAKER_02And is that a one and done? So if I come one week and want to do that chapel service, that one week I uh I'm done, or can I come how often can I come and do chapel service?
SPEAKER_01So we have a chapel schedule that's online. And if you once you've gone through the chapel and pro chapel speaker process and you're gonna you're able to be a chapel speaker, I will send you the ability, a link so it will give you the ability to access the schedule. Yeah. It's a weekly schedule with all the services we have during the day, right? Five services a day. And you can look and find out what services are open, and if a service is open, you put yourself on in that spot. Wow. And that's your spot.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Well, it may be true to form. They let anybody speak. Oh, Eric Ingelman gets up there and preaches every now and then. So is that did you just let come all? So Eric, I've seen you there. What is that about?
SPEAKER_00I I gotta go back to my audition. I got a lecture from uh Father Rogers Meredith. Uh this is a hospital.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is a hospital for the soul.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you are not going to be harsh.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I will get on you. And he shortly
From Seminary To Anglican Priest
SPEAKER_00after that, there was a sticky note with my name on it. You don't want a sticky note. And so he coached me, uh, stay close to the scripture. When I go in, I'm given a scripture for that day because the pastoral staff is wanting to center on certain things in the message about Jesus. They don't need somebody to just come in and tell jokes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They need somebody that can honor the scripture. There's a direction, but it's sort of like a wide road.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. So uh Father Rogers, unpack it a little bit. Eric mentioned that you assign a scripture to the chapel speaker. So for our audience, tell them about what is that uh process. So you'll get an assignment, you'll go on the calendar, then you would be given a passage of scripture to preach on. Can you explain that just a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01Once you've gone through all that, we'll send you a link to our what's called lectionary, and that's just all the scriptures for the year, right? And so you'll get a scripture, and it you know, be I'll take a little time to explain to you. Look at this text, but don't forget it's got a context, it's got a place that it lives. So we don't want you just to take that one or two sentences or three or four sentences or whatever it may be and just rip it out of its home. Yeah. Because it lives somewhere. But that is what you we want you to focus on, right? So that way, if nothing else, we know uh that like Eric said, you're not gonna get up and give a testimony. Testimonies are great, and there's a place for testimonies, but not it's not in a chapel.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because the testimony is about you. Yeah. We want you to preach to Jesus. So that's the way we're able to maintain that, that that happens. And you know, at first I thought, well, you know, as we talked about doing this, I thought, well, I'm just gonna end up preaching all the chapel services myself because no one's gonna want to do this. They're all gonna get mad and quit. You know, that's me. As I think like that. Yeah. No, actually, I only I think maybe two people didn't like it. Over overwhelmingly, people have said, it's so much easier. Yeah, I don't have to worry about what to preach on. And anybody that's a preacher knows that it that's the first place to start. What am I gonna preach exactly? Oh no, man, what am I gonna preach on? You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and actually, uh, you know, your testimony is not the primary thing. Right. But it can fit in there. Then yeah, then that's part of the sermon. That's part of the wide road while you're going that direction.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that's that is certainly Paul's declaration of Timothy, study to show thyself approved and workmen that needed not be ashamed of the gospel, but rightly divided in
Joining Union Gospel Mission
SPEAKER_02the word of truth. So as we declare here at Union Gospel Mission, it sets a tone for the most part, just as you said, that men and women, as we have a passage of scripture, what you've been able to provide as a foundation for individuals, and they're just not coming out of left field uh preaching something. So let's go a little bit deeper with spiritual formation. What are the other things that under your preview and what you have responsible, what are some of the other spiritual formative things that you govern as the chaplain at Union Gospel Mission of Terran County?
SPEAKER_01Well, there's several. Um I guess I would really be remiss if I didn't talk about Alpha, though. Okay. Because uh if you read any of the literature we put out our newsletters, things like that that have the testimonials of folks who've gone through you, Jim, and come out the other end, not every last one of them, but inevitably Alpha is mentioned. So if you don't know what the Alpha program is, the Alpha program is a discipleship program. It started in Church of England probably, I want to say almost 30 years ago now. Um and it's done everywhere, it's done all over the world, it's done in all kinds of different churches, and it's pretty basic level stuff. But I think the genius of that why alpha works so well at UGM is that once it starts out with a a video, and we watch a video, then we've got notes that are prepared, and then you break up into classes or into groups, and
The Chaplain’s Daily Work
SPEAKER_01what the volunteers that help facilitate those groups are told that they need to do is they just need to keep things going in a basic direction and to listen. Yeah. And I think as I've thought about this, I really I'm I'm pretty sure this is correct. The reason Alpha works as well as it does is because when you have folks that are you a lot of the folks at UGM um are have been, they're disenfranchised, they're marginalized, and they're lonely. And they're lonely because no one ever listens to them or talks to them. Like I can remember even when I was a kid, I had like long hair and everything. Okay. I'd cross the street. I remember this happening. I'd be crossing the street, I'd hear, ch ch I'd hear people's locking their doors. Yeah. Right? I was a hippie, yeah, right? Lock the door. You look like a scary dude, I bet Father Hunt. You didn't have the cleric collar. I know, I didn't look like anything. I was just a guy, man. Yeah. But this is how but just imagine how these folks are. Absolutely. Right? It's you know, and so no one talks to them, no one wants to talk to them, they're invisible, right? They're like the indivisible man almost. And you know, I think that we have a lot of trouble with cell phones at UGMs, right? I think this fascination and the thing about the cell phone is it's your little world that you can crawl inside of, right? But now when they get to Alpha,
Managing 35 Weekly Chapel Services
SPEAKER_01people are listening to them for once, and they're even caring about their opinion, no matter how crazy it is. Yeah. I mean, if you do get somebody who says, yes, Jesus lives on Venus, well, we want to kind of steer it away from that, right? But we're gonna listen, and in that listening, they are being reintegrated into society.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they're starting to regain some dignity. So when you talk about Christ sitter too, part of that is restoring humanity and dignity to people.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Alpha's, you know, it's a big commitment. It's a Thursday night. But it, you know, really, I don't I can't think of anything that we that I read about that comes out of UGM that the people that the residents hold up like they do, like they hold up Alpha. Wow. There may be other things that are just as impactful, but we don't necessarily hear about them.
SPEAKER_02A couple other things. We've we've had uh people from your team on the podcast, Reverend O'Cilia Sproul. So tell us a little bit about more of the other spiritual formations. We know that you have more than pre- You've introduced a couple other things. You have Kingdom Agenda, you have authentic manhood. Just tell our listening audience some of the other spiritual formative things, and then we'll give some final thoughts to what are your prayers for Union Gospel Mission and the work that's happening every day in the lives of men and women. So just give us a little bit more and final thoughts.
SPEAKER_01Real quick about Reverend Sproul. When I first came here, we didn't have a woman's chaplain. We started thinking about that. We didn't realize how badly we needed one until we got her. Amen. Amen. She's been absolutely fantastic. The other programs that we have that you just mentioned, Kingdom Agenda and Authentic Manhood, are intentionally modeled after the Alpha pattern of a movie, notes, small group, just because that works. We've seen that work so well. Okay. So those are more whereas I would describe Alpha as sort of um low-level for lack of a better word, low-level discipleship or basic discipleship. These are digging a little deeper into the Word of God and things like worldview, you know, what it means, when Jesus talks about his kingdom and what does that mean? And unpacking that, and then authentic manhood. What does it mean to be a man?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? Because a lot of men don't understand that to be a man is to be like Christ. Amen. He is the paradigm for humanity.
SPEAKER_02Amen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. They're very similar. They were using
Vetting And Auditioning Chapel Speakers
SPEAKER_01it. I mean, if it works, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
SPEAKER_02So we use that same pattern that we found to be so successful with Alpha. Wonderful. Father Rogers, do you mind praying a blessing over our listeners and over UGM and the work that's happening there? But also, would you give a charge to someone who's maybe listening and they are interested in becoming a part of the spiritual formative life of UGM, whether it be a chapel speaker, whether it's a volunteer, would you mind doing that uh just for us as we get ready to close our time together and Eric closes out?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Real quick, I'll I'll I'll take the first with the charge. First would be doers of the word, not just hearers. Right? If you are interested in doctrine, you're interested in theology, you're interested in Christianity, and you don't want Christianity to just be notional in your life, but actual, this is a great place to do it. Oh, I mean, these are the kind of people that Jesus always, always ministered to. Yeah. You want me to pray as well? Absolutely, gentlemen. Particularly, we need volunteers. So in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I'm in Father, I thank you for this podcast and all those who are listening to the podcast. We ask your blessing upon them, Father. We pray that things said here that are pleasing to you would go out and would affect people's hearts and minds. We pray for the needs of UGM, particularly for volunteers, Lord. You have granted us the desires of our heart by almost filling Union Gospel Mission with people. And now, Lord, we ask that you would also supply those laborers that we need. Be with us, Father. Again, bless us who hear. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
SPEAKER_02Amen.
SPEAKER_00Well, maybe you're in a part of your life where you didn't do what you started, but the reason that we are Christ centered is because Christ is centered upon us. He's centered on the world. But the love, joy, peace that Jesus gives, may you be refreshed to hear, obey, and follow him a little bit more. And if you like, give UGM T C a call.
unknownAmen.
SPEAKER_00God bless you. Thank you, Father Roger, for being with us. Thank you for having me. God bless you.
