Rev. Danny Fisher

At 2007′s end, the New York Times ran an cool story about the Loop Pizza Grill franchise’s employment of chaplains on their staff. Restaurant chaplaincy, huh? Interesting.

[The Rev. Becci Curtis, graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.] is…one of about 10 chaplains on the paid staff of the Loop Pizza Grill’s 26 restaurants throughout the Southeast. The chain’s co-founder and chief executive, Mike Schneider, came up with the idea several years ago as a way of combining his decades in the food industry with his more recent embrace of Christianity.

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In a secular workplace in a polyglot country, this form of God’s work involves both an open hand and a light touch. Ms. Curtis’s role is to be emotionally available for a young, often transient work force–one that includes Muslims, Jews and atheists, as well as Christians–not to proselytize it.

“I’m here to earn their trust, to be in the trenches with them, to give an example of helping out without complaining,” Ms. Curtis said, sounding rather like a military chaplain. “I tell the employees, ‘My primary responsibility is to be there to care for you guys.’

“Sometimes the conversations end up being very surface-y. There’s one employee, pretty much all we talk about is the Seattle Mariners. But I see that as valuable, because if he ever does have a problem, he’d feel the trust in sharing it with me. And if I do know about deeper issues–deaths in the family, frustrations with parents or siblings–I will seek opportunities to hear them out and offer advice.”