10/9/24 - 2063: Faith in Flight at DFW

Jim: You've tuned in to iWork4Him the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Almost everyone listening to the show has flown on an airplane and likely more than half of you have been forced to fly through the DFW, Dallas Fort Worth Airport. And if you have, you know that it is monstrous and that the majority of the planes taking off and landing belong to American Airlines.

What I bet you never knew was that there are 30 chaplains at DFW, and there's one who's leading them all, and that's Greg McBrayer. For almost 46 years, Greg has served within American Airlines as Chief Flight Dispatcher, Priest, Chaplain, Director of the DFW Airport Chaplaincy , and sometimes he even fuels the planes.

Just kidding on the last one. Greg leads dozens of chaplains as they serve the more than 60, 000 employees who work in and through and around DFW daily, as well as the rest of the 120, 000 American airlines employees around the world. You can catch a lot more Greg story online at our faith at work. com our faith at work. com. Greg is here today to tell us his amazing God story. Greg McBrayer, welcome to iWork4Him.

Greg McBrayer: Glad to be here. Thank you.

Martha: Man, that is a lot of employees. I just, that number is staggering. So that's just great. I'm glad you shared that, Jim.

Jim: Greg, before we start talking about your amazing career at American Airlines, 46 years at one place. That's amazing. Tell us your amazing Jesus story. How did you become a follower of Jesus?

Greg McBrayer: Started early in my life. I was raised in the church in a strong Christian family. And remained in that life until I got a little bit older and got out of school and went to work in airline industry, very young and somewhat drifted from my faith.

We didn't really, you didn't hear a lot of talk about God at work unless it was usually maybe in vain in, in the setting that I worked in as young man. But I'm just blessed to have been part of an evolution that has been able to change. But yeah, I was raised in the faith and somewhat drifted, but then was called back and was really called back due to the events that occurred right around 9/11.

Jim: Now, did you grow up in the Texas area? Are you from Texas originally?

Greg McBrayer: No, I grew up in, in the Atlanta area. And in my aviation career, I moved from Atlanta. I was in North Carolina for years, spent years up in Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh. And then came to American Airlines with the completion of the merger that created the new American Airlines after 9/11.

Martha: So I want to talk about that. So you spent, you have been 46 years total serving with American Airlines. Is that correct? I want to say it correctly. So at what point in time did you realize that your faith was really an integral part of your work as I believe a flight controller at the time, right?

Greg McBrayer: Correct. It actually did occur at 9/11. I was working as a flight controller that day on 9/11. It was an extremely busy day. Once we got news of what was going on, we had the task of trying to get all those aircraft on the ground. It had never been done before. There's thousands of airplanes over our head all day long.

And so it was a very busy day that day. At the end of that day, my shift began at four, it ended at one, I went home and I turned on the television like most of us. Was really mezmerized by the surreal visions that, that I'd seen on television and realized that I'd been a part of in my profession.

And it turned into a long, sleepless prayer filled night. I walked back into that flight control center the next morning at 4 a. m. Like I always do. It's a dark place. It's usually lit up with computers or back then in those days were printers running. It was really rather noisy. But that day there was a deafening silence in that room that I've never forgot.

I looked around the room and looked into the faces of the people that I work with. And they're the most focused professionals you'll ever meet. And the day before in the storm, so to speak, we had our heads down. We were going about doing what we needed to do in a crisis to get aircraft on the ground, but that next day when I saw the look on their faces, the fear, the uncertainty, the anger that I'd never seen before, I can remember in that moment just closing my eyes and saying, dear God, we need you here. And in that moment I remembered what we were reading in first Kings and in that moment, in the silence of that moment, I heard God tell me that's why I placed you there. And from that moment forward, I never did compartmentalize my faith and my work.

It evolved into a ministry that really evolved around that calling in that moment to move forward in seminary and complete my seminary training and be ordained. And it really would develop into what at American airlines today and at DFW airport today. But it really transformed on the day after 9 11, God called me into that.

Jim: Not everybody remembers 9 12. Everybody remembers 9/11. 9 12, there wasn't a single airplane in the air in the entire continental United States except for Air Force planes, right?

Martha: I actually remember, because I actually had a flight for 9 12. I was supposed to be going on a girl's vacation with a friend of ours. And so it was, we never would have imagined. I can't even imagine being in your shoes and in your industry at that time. So let, I would just want to take this a little further. So when you said you went to seminary, like one day, did you just go to your boss and say, I want to become a chaplain for everybody? Or what did that look like?

Greg McBrayer: It evolved around the work that I'm in. The fact of the matter is we're in a very stress filled environment. And completing my, I started a long journey through seminary training and things that were part of the ordination and orders and things like that. But the role really evolved around me in that moment before all that was even completed, I just defaulted to my faith in the storm that we were in at the time. And there was a tremendous amount of stress in our industry. Our pay was cut drastically. Airlines were in bankruptcy within two weeks. It devastated our industry.

And with that came a lot of anxiety and all kinds of uncertainty and fears in people's lives. And I thought I know that God has a place in this and he's called me into this and it really evolved around all of that. It's just a matter of caring for others on life's journey, on the common journey that we're on, at least in my aviation career to provide a level of care for them.

And really that kind of evolved corporately through leadership. Our executive leadership would see gosh, this is providing something that's for our employees that HR really can't provide. And we don't have the means of providing that immediately. I started a Bible study. We began meeting on a regular rhythm with that, and it just evolved into what God would do when he would eventually bring me to Texas.

And that event would create the new American airlines that exists today, which is the global largest airline in the world. And it would be out of the ashes of 9/11, I often say that God really raised up myself into ministry into what I am into doing today and also it built American airlines into what it is today because it created a merger flurry that would build American into the largest airline in the world and move it to Texas, which is the largest platform to do ministry in aviation.

For me, it's just been an evolution of God's hand at work, bringing faith into work in my industry, and it's been a blessing to be a part of.

Martha: I'd be curious for our listeners that are listening right now, how many of them might have had a similar situation, where 9/11 really woke them up to how they could minister in their workplace, because a lot of people needed, we all need the Lord all the time, but in that moment of crisis like that, where we've had so few events that affected everyone's heart the way that 9/11 did, and I remember how I felt.

I think everybody listening remembers how they felt and I just wish I could take a poll and know how many people did the Lord wake up and say, I need to minister to the people around me because it's so powerful when we get those opportunities To look at our work differently. And that's why we have this show is to help people to look at their work differently and see it as their mission field.

Greg McBrayer: I think you're right. It, I would love to know that the numbers on that too, because if you think of all the people that were called into military service as a result of that event, I'd love to know how many people were called in to serving the Lord out of that, would dedicate their life, because as you can remember, our church has exploded during that season.

 And how many people were called into a higher calling in their lives in ministry, or to take that step into ordained orders or whatever it may have been in their particular denomination to, to meet the call that God had for them put on his people through that event? And I think it was a obviously a very transformative event in all of our lives That's for sure.

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Jim: So Greg, after 9/11, were you the very first American Airlines chaplain? Did they already have some chaplains around and you just organized it? What was it? Were you the first one?

Greg McBrayer: I was the first one that's ever really been titled that in my American Airlines job. Now, DFW Airport Chaplaincy has been here for 50 years. And we've always had a large presence and have been the leader in airport chaplaincy. Most amount of chaplains in the most amount of chapels in an airport, but in American, we had no one in that role. Now we had some, obviously we had people that were ordained that were working at American airlines in different capacities.

I didn't know who they were and they didn't know who I was, but the fact of the matter is the whole role evolved around a need there. It started at nine 11, but then, if you've ever been through corporate mergers, and 9/11 caused a flurry of them, they're very taxing on employees. It's very difficult when you have to uproot people's lives. And so really, that event caused that, which really, once again, facilitated the need for a level of care that was not being provided, at least through existing means at the time to meet that need.

And so there was an immediate fruit seen in this and I have to share, I've known the people that run American Airlines at the top for a very long time. I've been in this business a long time and I've, we have been on a long journey together through multiple mergers and they knew me and building that good relationship in your corporation or your business with the leaders in it, for you to be able to do God's work in that space and carry out your calling is absolutely critical. It depends on relationships and I, those had been evolved even before that event, but the fruitfulness that came out as a result of what took place on the backside of that.

Martha: You make a really great point in the consistency of probably your character through that, too, that you're, people in charge saw how you were same person. I'm sure you're still human, right? Maybe a little bit of that.

Jim: Yeah, your wife called. Your wife called and said, make sure Greg doesn't come across too perfect because I've got a whole list of things we could bring up in case that needs to be done.

Martha: But I think we can all apply that in our work, that we make sure that we're built, building and keeping that good relationship with those around us, especially those decision makers so that they can, where they see that there's a need that you could help fill, what a great thing that would be.

Greg McBrayer: So that's critical. It's absolutely critical. And I think that, I think that if you do that wherever you're working, I think it's needful. And especially if you don't already have an organization or a corporation that has employee resource groups, Christian resource groups in your corporation, it would be critical for you to make sure that you have those relationships in place before you want to truly start.

All of us as Christians need to be modeling our faith. The best sermon we're ever going to hear is the one we see. So we should all be living that out. But if you're going to really get the full buy in from your executive leadership team. You need to have good relationships with them and they will see a fruitfulness in that, that they know that it's hard to put a quantifiable value on, but it's priceless in the storm and every business has storms.

You Don't have to have a global 9 11 event to have a tower fall in your business. It happens every single day. And that's when people of God come to the forefront with what God's planted in their hearts to serve, to provide a service that, like I said, that you don't know the value of it until you need it.

Jim: So you said that there's 30 chaplains now within American Airlines, is that correct?

Greg McBrayer: That's DFW airport .

Jim: That's DFW. That's one for every 2, 000 people. That doesn't seem like a big concentration You couldn't even possibly know the names of 2, 000 people, could you? I mean, maybe you could. Yeah, some people have a gift.

Greg McBrayer: I mean i'm pretty good with faces, but i'm not good with names anymore. But I usually will remember people. One way that we've done that through chaplaincy at dfw airport we've created a chaplain's app that we have available. That's accessible to, in fact, all the employees at DFW Airport, and there's 60, 000 of them there. And that includes just not only American, but the other vendors and all the others that are out there working, but that is also available to our American Airlines employees. It makes them an opportunity for them to contact us and to have care with a chaplain whenever they need that. And so that's something that we've expanded our footprint with to make a greater touch point with people.

Jim: So I would just to follow up to that question. So DFW, you get 30 chaplains at DFW for American Airlines, and there's also DFW chaplains, right?

Greg McBrayer: When we hire chaplains, when I hire chaplains at DFW airport I like to often look to former military chaplains to be honest with you They're probably the best chaplains in the world. I call them plug and play. They know how to work in a pluralistic environment or in a hostile environment like that, Which makes them very adaptable to an airport. An airport's like a city unto itself. It's got all the dynamics of any other town. And you wouldn't have a city that size without having a place of worship or people that can provide spiritual care there.

Jim: But that's my point, I want to get to that. Okay, I've flown in and out of DFW a couple dozen times in the last 30 or 40 years. I barely ever have enough time to get to my next gate. How on earth do people have time to meet with a chaplain? Literally, I don't even know how you do it.

Greg McBrayer: You Know, obviously you've been flying on American. You've never had a really ugly long delay, but they happen every day. And trust me, there are a lot of people that I walked in there after we've had a major weather complex come in and seen hundreds of people sleep in all of the airport. And trust me, Not everybody at DFW or not everybody flying on American Airlines today is going to Disney World.

They're going to do life and when life throws them a curveball or a 9/11 tower falls in their life and their flight gets canceled and they can't get to the funeral they're going to or the wedding they're supposed to be at or the board meeting they're supposed to present at, it is a rich, ripe, opportunity for ministry.

Trust me, it is probably it's the most, it's absolutely the most rewarding ministry I've ever been a part of ever. And throughout my day, I can do a 30 minute chapel mass. And we have 25 minute prayer services throughout the day. It goes off, an announcement on the overhead every 10 minutes, an hour prior to that service. And it's full.

People hear that. And it's a great example. In fact, scripture tells us we receive our faith by hearing God's word. The same way when they hear that announcement, the first time they hear it, they go, what did that just say? And then 10 minutes later, they hear it again. And they come into that service that they didn't know they were going to be a part of, and I always start it in the same way. Does anybody know they were going to be here today? And everybody looks with a blank stare. No, none of them did. I said God knew you were here. And there'll never be a greater example of God being in front of you on every step of your journey all the way to eternity than what you just experienced because he opened your ears in the craziness of this world out here in this airport and you heard it the first time, didn't clearly get it.

10 minutes later, you heard it again and he drew you here to receive word and sacrament today that you didn't think was going to be in your day. God is in front of you on every step of that journey if you're listening for him.

Martha: That's beautiful.

Greg McBrayer: And they, at that moment, they're completely glued into what I'm saying. And the gratitude I hear at the end of that little 30 minute offering far exceeds what I hear in a large parish every Sunday. Because they're loving on me as much as I am there, but in that airport, the authenticity of their thanksgiving for what they just received is at a whole different level. Because it resonates with them that God is with them, even in the disruptions of life when we're on that journey.

Jim: Is there a chapel in every terminal at DFW?

Greg McBrayer: Yes, we cover all the terminals. We've got a chaplain in every terminal and we have chaplains canvassing the entire airport.

Martha: So they're walking around looking for opportunity too? I was thinking about this and that there's been two times where I have flown where I've been in stress. My mom having a heart surgery or whatever it might have been. And it made me so much more aware of exactly what you said earlier. There's not, not everybody's going to Disney World. There are people, they're going to something either that they're dreading or that they're anticipating or there's a need or they're hurting or they're worried. And I've thought about that ever since the time I remember when my mom was going into surgery as I was loading, getting on a plane and concerned about getting there in time and, everything turned out great.

But I remember that feeling of helplessness and just that, I thought to myself, nobody around here knows what I'm feeling right now, and I need to be more aware of what other people are experiencing when they're traveling. And I just love hearing that you have this experience. available for people and just the awareness that we can bring to it because all y'all out there are going to fly through DFW some days.

Greg McBrayer: And there are chaplaincies in many airports. There's chapels in almost all airports, but chaplaincy ministry means there are chaplains available. The thing about it is , one thing about traveling, it doesn't matter when you show up at the airport.

If you came from the penthouse or the poor house, when you show up in front of an airport, you have to surrender . And just having to surrender the fact that your life's out of your control, it's at the mercy of weather and airline and everything else outside of your control, that creates a rich ministry opportunity.

People don't like having to surrender that. And so when they show up there and things go sideways, to have someone to provide spiritual care there is priceless. Corporations will utilize us. Let's say that there's an organization flying out of the city you live in that sends sales people out, hundreds of them a year. Like you said, not all of them are going to Disney. They're going to do life. They're going to bury relatives. They're going to do the things in life that are hard and to have that spiritual presence there for them, to engage them on that journey is priceless. It's just, you can't imagine what the impact is until you've experiences similar to like you did for someone who's dealing with a loss or a hardship or a troop movement going to Afghanistan.

We've been involved in all those things. I do dozens and dozens of memorial services for American Airlines employees. We work with the military. We do over 170 dignified transfers a year for the military, moving through DFW.

Jim: That's hard.

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All right, so I want to, let's just go to the business practical side of this conversation. How has having you chaplains within American Airlines and DFW impacted the bottom line of those two organizations?

Greg McBrayer: That's the hard part and this is where it's a hard sell. It's hard to quantify what is being provided when you're meeting someone in a moment of need. To that person, it's priceless, but it becomes very hard to measure and it's hard to manage what you can't measure. So what we've done with the app that we designed was part of that.

So now when a chaplain engages someone at DFW, or an employee or whoever it may be, there's a way for them to quickly use the app and it logs what they're, maybe they prayed with someone, maybe they offered whatever, what kind of service they could provide. It, it's easily loggable for them.

So in the past, at the end of a shift, we would require someone who's been there for four hours at a stipend payroll to sit down on a computer and log all their work. We know how that looks, but with this app, they can instantly provide that data. So now we have a way of tracking that data that is, that shows us our touch points.

We, we did almost 40, 000 touch points last year at DFW airport, 39, 000 touch points. That's, that is contact. And that's the ones that we were keeping up with then. It'll be a lot more accurate now with the app where we have a little bit better way to measure that. But that's a remarkable figure just within itself.

Jim: Yeah, that's over a thousand, that's almost, that's over a thousand a day.

Greg McBrayer: Yeah, that's right. That's a remarkable amount. And like I said, it's even better now with the app 'cause it's a little bit easier to track it. It makes it easier for the chaplains to keep up with that.

Martha: I love that. So with what you've learned about being a chaplain with American Airlines and the work with DFW, have you or can you help other people start chaplaincies within their organizations?

Greg McBrayer: Absolutely. Number one, if you're coming from the church world and you're coming from just parish ministry or church ministry, it's a totally different ministry than chaplaincy ministry.

So first off and foremost, I would say that make sure that you're taking some additional course training or something like that to really learn how to engage people in that environment as opposed to when they come to your church or parish. It's a different world. It's as important to know what not to say as it is what to say.

So I would first encourage that. But I would certainly encourage anyone who feels the heart for working for, with people that they don't know just to engage people. It really requires a personality road that it is engaging like that. And I would say that not every priest and pastor is like that. We would hope they were, but the reality is it's a lot easier when they come to you and you know them, you have to be at the forefront of this to be more engaged with people because you're only as good as your engagement, but take it upon yourself to look into that.

 Try to reach out to corporations that maybe not have that or your own business that you're involved with right now and say, you know something, maybe this is something that we could provide. There's another organization that I work with called Chaplain Care, two capital C's, Chaplain Care, and we have ability to connect Chaplains to organizations through the app that we've developed and that we utilize at DFW that I helped them develop there.

But also it's a resource for corporations that are now looking at corporate chaplains because there's been an increase in the interest and demand in that. People are spending more time at work today than they ever have, and that's not going to change. And so it gives an organization the way to provide a level of care that, like I said, doesn't exist right now.

It used to exist a little bit under the HR umbrella, but that has changed in recent decades. So now a chaplain can provide a safety net for an employee that might be having a struggle. And where this shows up profitably, I think is the fact that it helps increase in attendance. It helps with call loss.

It helps provide a level of care of if an employee has a loss and really doesn't have a church Home or something like that, you can provide a level of spiritual care for a family. And honestly, I've gone to the houses of employees with executive suite people in my industry to make a difficult call when someone's lost someone on the ramp, for example, or in our business in what I do. And there's nothing more comforting to a person who might be very comfortable in the boardroom to have someone who's very comfortable in ministry to go make that very difficult call on a family like that. And so it's hard to measure that. It's hard to put a value on that, but it's priceless when you need it.

And I want to encourage people, these Christian resource groups and corporations today, they cracked the door open for us to more model our faith at work. And that brings you the opportunity to say look, what if we had a chaplain come in here and do a talk with us once a month, or come in and help us lead a Bible study once a week or something like that? Or just a clergy in their church.

There's a new landscape right now in corporate America that's never been there, and I've seen this evolution occur where this is an acceptable practice now. It's formed around all the affinity groups that really don't align with our values, but it does give us the opportunity as Christians To be on the playing field and this day and time, that's a huge advancement for us.

It didn't exist. And I know in this industry, cause I've been in it all my life and oriented a lot of other companies, unless it was just a Christian owned company, but now it does. The ERGs, Employee Resource Groups, and most of them will have a Christian one. If your organization does not, you need to ask about that, but there is a way to get in.

Jim: There's so much more we could talk about, obviously with Greg McBrayer, who's got a lot of stuff under his belt, but we're done. We're out of time. Make sure you check out Greg online at OurFaithAtWork. com, OurFaithAtWork. com. Father Greg McBrayer, thank you so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Greg McBrayer: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. God bless you all.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.