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A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
3:00 P.M. ET Monday, September 24, 2012
Paul Davis (left) accepts the 2012 Secretary of Defense Employer Support
Freedom Award presented to Crystal Springs church by Jim Rebholz
(right), honoring the church’s support of U.S. Army Chaplain John Mark
Branning (center). A UMNS photo by Jay Mallin.
View in Photo Gallery
In 2007, when the Rev. John Mark Branning decided he was young enough, at 33, to answer a call for military chaplains, he had the support of his United Methodist congregation in Mississippi behind him.
Three years later, when his Army National Guard Unit was deployed to
Iraq for a year, that support was extended to Capt. Branning and his
family in an extraordinary way by members of Crystal Springs United Methodist Church.
“It was the obvious thing to do, to support our pastor,” said Paul
Davis, chairman of the church’s pastor-parish relations committee.
“Frankly, it’s just the right thing to do.”
On Sept. 20, the Crystal Springs congregation was one of 15 U.S. employers recognized
with the 2012 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award, the
nation’s highest honor for employer support of Guard and Reserve. The
award has been presented annually since 1996 by the Employer Support of
the Guard and Reserve, a Department of Defense agency.
The honorees — selected from more than 3,200 nominations submitted
by guardsmen, reservists, or family members acting on their behalf — met privately with General Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the reception and dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington.
Fourteen members of the congregation, including Branning and Davis
and their wives, attended the black-tie dinner. Crystal Springs was the
second church and first employer in Mississippi to receive the Freedom
award.
The Rev. Tom Carter, director of endorsement for the United
Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, considers the
congregation to be a denominational model for chaplain support.
“I was extremely pleased to hear that Crystal Springs United
Methodist Church has been recognized by the Secretary of Defense for
their support of Chaplain John M. Branning during his deployment,” he
said. “It is my prayer that other United Methodist churches will follow
the example of Crystal Springs UMC.”
For Branning, now 38, the award is fitting recognition for both his
congregation and the United Methodist Mississippi Annual (regional)
Conference. “Our conference as a whole really went out and beyond to try
to take care of our church and me as a chaplain in the army and an
elder in this conference,” he said.
Responding to shortage
Chaplain John Branning leads a service of Holy Communion following a
mortar attack in Taji, Iraq. A UMNS photo courtesy of Chaplain John
Branning.
View in Photo Gallery
Branning had been assigned to the church in Crystal Springs, a town
of about 6,000 some 25 miles south of downtown Jackson, Miss., for four
years when he enlisted. “There was a great shortage of military
chaplains, especially among the reserve,” he explained. “They (the
congregation) agreed it would be a great ministry and outreach for our
church.”
But because clergy are not covered by the Uniform Service Act, which
protects the jobs of individuals deployed for active duty, he asked
the congregation to consider whether a new pastor should be appointed to
Crystal Springs.
His congregation not only declined to do so, but also allowed his
wife, Traci, who was expecting their third child, to remain in the
parsonage during his deployment from November 2010 to November 2011.
“It went without saying that we were going to support his family.
That was beyond question,” Davis said. “We love his family very
dearly.”
The congregation considered Branning’s military assignment to be an
extension of his ministry. “He is spreading the gospel in a very real
sense when he goes abroad,” he explained. “This is another form of a
mission project, I guess, in our view and a very important one.”
Crystal Springs, which has an average Sunday worship attendance of
225, received support from the district superintendent at that time,
the Rev. Johnny Crosby. He preached every Sunday for five or six months,
Davis said, before the bishop worried about the strain and found a
retired minister to fill in for the remainder of Branning’s deployment.
While he served as a battalion chaplain in Iraq, conducting worship
services, providing counseling and providing insight to his commander
on the nature of Islam and other religious aspects of the area, church
members watched over his two sons, B.J., now 10, and Aidan, now 5,
providing child care when their mother was at work.
The congregation also paid for parsonage expenses and school fees.
When it was time for Traci Branning to give birth to their son, Jasper,
on March 1, 2011, church members accompanied her to the hospital and
set up a Skype connection so the pastor could be present for the
delivery electronically.
“That’s the beauty of our church,” Branning said about the
denomination. “The love was not only extended to members, but to me as
pastor as well. They just wrapped their arms around us. You can’t ask
for more than that.”
‘Extraordinary commitment’
Beth Sherman, a public affairs staff person for the Office of the
Secretary of Defense-Reserve Affairs, said Crystal Springs demonstrated
“an extraordinary commitment” to Branning.
She told United Methodist News Service that the congregation paid
the difference between his regular salary and military income while he
was deployed, covered parsonage utilities, child care and tuition costs
and provided $7,500 worth of morale kits to soldiers in his unit in
Iraq.
“Their willingness to provide an exceptionally high level of
uncompromising support for their Citizen Warrior employee and his
family demonstrates a culture and spirit that stands out
nationally as the ideal model for their fellow employers to emulate,”
she said. “They are truly Patriotic Employers in every sense of the
word."
Life is back to normal for Branning, who continues to devote two
weeks a year as a reserve chaplain, but he approaches his daily duties
in a slightly different way.
“I came back and I started slowing down and looking and
appreciating,” he explained. “The possibility of life leaving so fast in
a combat zone makes you appreciate life itself.”
“I’m proud to be a United Methodist,” Branning said. “I’m proud
because of our connectional system and the way we work and the love that
our people show.”
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her at http://twitter.com/umcscribe.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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