SPOKANE, Wash. – The Spokane County Sheriff’s Chaplaincy Board has been ministering to wildfire victims, officers and crime victims throughout 2024, making it a particularly busy time for the organization. The Chaplaincy Board has also been working to diversify its spiritual support resources, given the religious homogeneity of the Chaplaincy Board itself.
Lead pastor Robert Kinnoun said the chaplaincy board has been supporting fire chaplains and FEMA officials working with victims of the Gray and Oregon wildfires, who have had to re-share their stories after a federal disaster declaration expanded funding for them.
“It’s been a challenging year. It’s been busy and service activities like this come on top of everything else we’ve been doing,” Kinune said.
Kinune, who became senior pastor under former Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, said his staff has strived to serve Spokane’s people of all faiths.
“We have 10 chaplains, including myself. To join this ministry you have to join a non-profit Christian ministry for police officers and their spouses. We have a pluralistic department and we focus on recruiting people who can serve the pluralistic community,” Kinnune said.
Spokane County is majority Catholic and Protestant, but mainline denomination church attendance has declined significantly as non-denominational evangelical churches have spread throughout the county. Over the past two decades, Spokane has also seen an increase in its unaffiliated and non-Christian population.
Though Kinune’s office reflects only the Protestant and non-denominational demographics of Spokane County, he says his office is able to meet the spiritual needs of a diverse range of residents.
“This is something that I had in mind when I took over as lead pastor. The free exercise of religion is very important, so we started looking at the demographics of the county and reached out to as many religions as we could to see who we could reach out to,” Kinnune said.
Currently, the chaplaincy requires all recruits to take an oath that includes language that references the county’s wide range of religious traditions.
The sheriff’s chaplaincy association is funded by taxpayer-funded contracts with the police department and donations to Christian service organizations for police officers and their spouses. Kinnoun said the association works with volunteers representing non-Christian faiths to meet the needs of all county residents.
Kinune expressed the ongoing commitment of the nine chaplains on staff to serve officers and victims in a year that has thus far proven to be extremely taxing on the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department and the chaplaincy profession.
“If someone needs help and asks for it, we’re going to say yes,” Kinune said.
At the end of his interview with Nonstop Local, Kinnoon encouraged interested area residents to consider applying for the chaplaincy position and asked everyone in Spokane County to continue praying for the sheriff’s office and its chaplains.
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