I cannot express how much I love the fall. The cool weather moving in, beautiful colors of the trees changing, ramping up chaplain trainings, hunting, and the general change of life routines. Before my spinal surgery, I began to focus on getting healthy for the surgery and have continued the journey of losing weight, exercising, and spending more time outdoors for rest and mental health. I am grateful to see the progress / change being made in overall wellness. 

I have also seen our responder bible study grow. It is wonderful to see responders take their spiritual journey seriously and growing in their relationship with Christ. We take time to process the hard things from the job as well as life. Please continue to pray for us as we study the Word together and support one another. 

Much of my time this month as been spent focusing on two efforts, building relationships with responders / agencies across the Denver metro area and revamping all of our training materials for the Fall. I continue to meet with responders and agency leaders to check in on them personally as well as better understanding how we can support agencies. Thank you for your prayers as these relationship deepen and we strive to meet the needs of all those serving our communities. On the training side of things, each year we work on refining and making our training as excellent and relevant as possible for our responder chaplains. 

Lastly, we have begun monthly state leadership meetings for Serving the Shield. This is our effort to build unity and strengthen our collaboration across the country. It is crucial that we continue to multiply ourselves to be able to scale up the organizational structure. You could say they are growing pains as we move from local, state, and regional chaplaincy, to national chaplaincy. All of this is good, just a new navigation to build to remain healthy. 

If you would like to join our prayer and financial team, please click on the link below and select Give to Chaplain Travis Akins from the dropdown. 

Serving The Shield / Rocky Mountain Police & Fire Chaplains Update
Here is an article/devotion from one of our new chaplains, Rocks to Soil. He gives a perspective of the journey as a chaplain as you move into becoming a person's chaplain. 

Kevin was able to speak at the Utah's Sheriff's conference last week. It continues to be a great honor and opportunity to be invited into these spaces to share about chaplaincy and the impact being made. There were about 500 people at the conference and we are already seeing interested in the growing movement that God is doing. 

We have seen some transitions in chaplains with retirements and relocations. We have been encouraged to see others show interest in filling these positions. Good interviews and vetting is so important as we bring new chaplains into an agency. If we put in a chaplain that does not meet the needs and dynamics of the agency, it can not only hurt chaplaincy for that agency, but chaplaincy in the neighboring areas. Emergency Responder work is a small world, like many vocations, where the ripple effect can be seen and felt for years. 

Trainings
We have several trainings coming up in the next few months and we are planning more into 2027. We will be in Colorado in Oct, Arizona in November, and Utah in January and have discussions happening for West Colorado, Michigan, Tennessee, and Missouri. If you would like us to bring an Essentials, Advanced, or a combination of the two, please contact us so we can begin looking at options to bring to your area.  

Please be in prayer for these upcoming trainings/events:

Basic Chaplain Training (Colorado) - October 9-10
Marriage Retreat - Oct 16-18
Two-Day Advanced Training (Colorado) - Nov 13-14
Chaplain Essentials and Advanced Training (Arizona) - Nov 17-19
Chaplain Advanced Training (Arizona) - Nov 19
Essentials and Advanced Training (Utah) - Jan 15-16
STS Annual Conference - April 21, 2027
STS One Day Advanced Training - April 22, 2027
FEMA Courses - Self Paced