Royal Marines Chaplain

The Reverend Bill Gates RN

For me the key elements of being a Royal Navy Chaplain fall into two parts.

Firstly, carrying no rank is such an important thing in a community where rank is very much in the forefront of what goes on. The fact that I am able to talk to folk as ordinary men rather than ‘Corporal such and such’ or ‘Colonel so and so’ makes the whole job so much more personal and strips away a few layers of the masks that people so often adopt.

Secondly, this really is incarnational ministry. Being amongst the lads is so much more important than what I say. As a Royal Navy Chaplain to the Royal Marines, this really begins in training. Like many other chaplains to the Corps, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to join a Recruit Troop and undertake the Commando Course, participating in everything except drill and weapon handling. More people than I fully realised were aware that I was in the field with my Troop, getting cold, wet, tired and occasionally navigationally challenged. As my time working with the Corps has gone on, men feel they can talk to me, because they recall me struggling in the gym and on the assault course.

On successful completion of training I served with 45 Commando RM and deployed with them on various exercises as well as going to Norway and Afghanistan with them. The fact that I have been alongside them, I believe, enables them to approach and hopefully, relate to me.

Royal Navy Chaplaincy is very much people-based. People talk to you if they know you and feel they can trust you. Through the rank, the training and by being alongside lads in a variety of places, enables me to share God’s love and grace to battle hardened men, and this is something I consider to be a great privilege.