Just one example: Chaplain Steve Lee, head of Peace Officer Ministries, at work, somewhere.

“The police called me from the house of a woman with a gun to her head….”

That’s the conversation I overheard in the hallway outside my office. (A workshop for “chaplains, peace officers and pastors, focusing on effective Christian ministry to and through law enforcement” is meeting at Concordia Seminary this week.)

The rest of the story involved 16 cats, animal control, health and human services, and the woman—gun to her head—shouting out the window, “You’re not taking away my babies!” The end of the story involved this particular chaplain talking the woman down, averting disaster, and restoring calm to the neighborhood.

I didn’t get a chance to get the chaplain’s name or where he was from. So he remains anonymous to me. Which is just as well. Because it occurred to me that there are thousands of ministers in thousands of neighborhoods who answer phone calls in just the way he did. His story probably didn’t make the evening news or the headlines. This lede didn’t bleed. Nevertheless, whether it’s a crisis situation, a family wedding, or even simply a “ministry of presence” at the hospital bed of a loved one, these thousands take up a ministry of healing and hope every day.

Most of what they do remains perfectly anonymous. Except to the ones whose lives they touch.

And that’s fine by me. It’s one of the reasons I became a minister too.