Chaplain Services

Chaplain Services

Phone: 405-456-1000, ext. 65138
Email: OkcChaplainServices@va.gov
Patient TV Channel: 35.1

Our chaplains are clinical pastoral care specialists who provide religious and non-religious people with services such as:

• Community referrals
• Crisis ministry
• Devotional materials, Bibles, and sacred texts
• End-of-life decision counseling
• Ethics counseling
• Grief and loss (bereavement) counseling
• Pastoral support at the time of terminal diagnosis
• Prayer, anointing, sacraments, and blessings
• Spirituality recovery 
• Support during times of anxiety, doubt, guilt, anger, and uncertainty
• TeleChaplaincy for Veterans who live far away from or have difficulty traveling to the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center or don’t have time to attend a face-to-face spiritual care session.

Interfaith Chapel

The Chapel remains open for prayer, meditation, and spiritual refuge 24 hours a day. Chapel doors are closed during chaplain-led groups and events. If the Chapel is unavailable, come to the office and we will find an alternate, quiet place for you.

Oklahoma City VA Medical Center
5th Floor
Room 5A145
Map of VA Oklahoma City campus
Hours:  24/7
Phone: 405-456-1000, ext. 65138

Office: 5B100 (left from Main Elevator)
Chapel: 5A145 (right from Main Elevator)

How We Serve

Chaplain Service takes a holistic approach in caring for the whole person – body, mind, and spirit.

We are Whole Health providers and active members of interdisciplinary teams, ensuring a continuum of care.

Whole Health Spiritual Care Includes:

• Blessings & Prayer
• Grief Support
• End of Life Spiritual Care
• Pregnancy Loss Spiritual Care
• Mental Health Spiritual Care
• Recovery Support
• Moral Injury & PTSD Spiritual Care
• Women’s & Men’s Groups
• Spiritual Assessments
• Spiritual Counseling
• Listening

Who We Serve

Chaplain Service provides care for:

• Veterans, Families & Survivors
• Staff & Providers
• Individuals & Groups
• Couples & Families
• Inpatient & Outpatient
• Women, Men, LGBTQIA
• All Faiths & Spiritualities

VA Chaplains are Mandated Reporters and are legally obligated to report suspected abuse – which can include child abuse, domestic abuse, and elder abuse – and threats of harm to self and others.

Spiritual Recovery

Using your values and beliefs to address spiritual injuries and illness.

Spiritual injury takes place regardless of a person’s spiritual orientation and religious beliefs. VA Chaplains are trained to assess spiritual injury and to provide care that is free of proselytizing and designed to meet the Veteran where they are in order to facilitate healing.

Become a Chaplain

OKC VA Health Care Service is a teaching hospital and provides chaplain training through Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)

Positions are competitive and limited. Master’s degree required for stipend, employment. VA employment following training is not guaranteed.

For more information or to apply, contact:

Dr. Brenda Wallace 
Certified Educator
Brenda.Wallace@va.gov
404-368-4816

Kristen Melton
Chief of Chaplain Service
Kristen.Melton@va.gov
405-456-5138

Contact a Chaplain

For more information, please call our chaplains Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CT at 405-456-5138

Chaplain Staff

The VA Oklahoma City Healthcare System chaplains provide spiritual care for people of their faith and help people other faiths and traditions. They serve patients, family members, friends, and VA staff members. Our chaplains practice a holistic approach to ministering to our Veterans. We help them use faith in all areas of life. Our chaplain staff includes:

• 2 Protestant chaplains
• 3 Roman Catholic chaplains
• 1 Buddhist Chaplain
• Resident and intern chaplains in the clinical pastoral education (CPE) program.

Our chaplains serve on the hospice and palliative End of Life care team, and the psychiatric inpatient unit’s Interdisciplinary Treatment care team. They provide services to the Safe Haven and Warrior 2 Soul Mate (W2SM) programs.

Chaplain Bios

Chaplain Kelly is a Board Certified Chaplain credentialed through the National Association of Catholic Chaplains and the National Association of VA Chaplains. She holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Dallas, a BA in Pastoral Ministry from Newman University, and an MA in Theology and Leadership from Gonzaga University. She has served as a Spiritual Director in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City since completing a five-year program of study and formation in 2019. Chaplain Kelly has a background in women’s prison ministry, which she began in 2014, and has helped facilitate abortion healing retreats as a member of the Oklahoma City Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat Team since 2017. Chaplain Kelly is a certified provider of guided imagery and a certified Level IV practicum provider of Healing Touch. She is an active member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral where she leads a scripture and faith sharing group and serves as a lector and extraordinary minister of holy communion. Chaplain Kelly serves on the Ethics Committee at the OKC VA. She works with inpatients in the acute and geropsych mental health units and with outpatients individually and in group settings. Chaplain Kelly is pursuing specialty certifications in both Women Veterans Health and Mental Health Chaplaincy. She has a background in the arts, editing, public relations, and communication. Chaplain Kelly’s father, Maj. Hugh Fanning, was a Marine Corps pilot in Vietnam until his presumed death in October 1967, and she has many other family members who have served.

Chaplain Fellow Jackie is an alumna of Mercer University's James & Carolyn McAfee School of Theology, receiving her M.Div. in May 2020. She is appropriately ordained, endorsed and affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. (PAW, Inc). Chaplain Jackie served as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the United States Army, 3rd Infantry Division. Her chaplaincy area of focus is Advanced Palliative Care. She serves nationally within PAW, Inc. as a Health Professional/Chaplain and in the National Adjutant Corps. She is working toward her Doctor of Health Administration (DHA) at the University of Phoenix. Her passion for serving brought her to Chaplaincy, which provided her opportunities to serve those who served. Originally from Dayton, OH, she now lives in Douglasville, GA, and works in Oklahoma City, OK. A fun fact about Chaplain Jackie is her love for relaxing mandala coloring books.

Motto: Plan your work; Work your plan.

Chaplain Potter served 14 years in the United States Navy. After leaving the Navy, he desired to continue serving, so started his education toward becoming a Hospice/Palliative Care Chaplain. On his journey, he attended Liberty Theological Seminary received his Master of Divinity, and was ordained into the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. He ministered at a church in Bowie Maryland and was called to serve in hospice. He became board-certified and specialty-certified in Hospice and Palliative Care and continued his education to receive a Master of Science in Thanatology, which is the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families.

He has been the Hospice/Palliative Care Chaplain at the Oklahoma City VA HCS since 2019 and serves in many different capacities.

• Co-facilitator of multiple national chaplain programs:
  • CORE: Chaplain Orientation Electronic
  • CAVE: Chaplain Advance Education for Hospice and Palliative Care Specialty
  • NAVAC: National Association of Veterans Affairs Chaplain Committee for specialty certification.
• Preceptor for CPE students
• Coordinator of the No Veteran Dies Alone program
• Facilitator of the Bereavement programs including one-on-one and group programs
• For self-care, I play golf and spend time with my family

Dr. Wallace graduated from Bethune-Cookman College (now Bethune-Cookman University) in Daytona Beach, FL, with degrees in mathematics and chemistry. She holds a Master of Divinity from Morehouse School of Religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, GA, having graduated with honors. She also holds a Doctor of Education from Walden University in Minneapolis, MN.

Dr. Wallace became an ACPE Certified Educator in 2010. She was ordained as an American Baptist minister and served as Assistant Pastor at the Oakhurst Baptist Church. She currently attends both the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where she served as Assistant Pastor, and Victory for the World Church in Decatur, GA.

Dr. Wallace is proficient in qualitative research and is widely published. She has worked for four VAs, as well as in private sector settings and hospitals. She has served as guest lecturer at the Interdenominational Theological Center. Before her career in ministry, Dr. Wallace worked as an engineer at NASA and spent twenty years at BellSouth (now AT&T) as an engineer, project, and product manager.

Dr. Wallace began her career in ministry after receiving the call in 1992. She completed her Chaplain Residency in 2002 and immediately began the process to become an ACPE Certified Educator. She has served in some chaplaincy capacity since January 2002. Dr. Wallace loves teaching CPE and lives by the African Ubuntu philosophy that “I am because we are,” signifying the importance of community and that no one person is responsible for their success.

Contracted Chaplains