At St. Luke's, we recognize all faiths and beliefs in our pastoral approach and believe all spiritual and religious rites and symbols represent positive energy, faith, and hope. This recognition drives the actions our pastoral care staff take every day.


The activities of professional chaplains include diverse interactions with patients and families, professional staff, volunteers, and community members.  When religious beliefs and practices are tightly interwoven with cultural contexts, chaplains constitute a powerful reminder of the health, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling power of religious faith.

Professional chaplains reach across faith group boundaries and do not proselytize.  Acting on behalf of their institutions, they also seek to protect patients from being confronted by other, unwelcome, forms of spiritual intrusion.

St. Luke's chaplains also:

• Provide supportive spiritual care through empathic listening, demonstrating an understanding of persons in distress.  
• Serve as members of patient care teams.
• Design and lead religious ceremonies of worship and ritual.
• Lead or participate in health care ethics programs.
• Educate the healthcare team and community about the relationship of religious and spiritual issues to institutional services.
• Help St. Luke's meet patient expectations for competent, compassionate spiritual services.  In an age of high-technology medicine, brief hospitalizations, and shorter contact with physicians, chaplains offer a key opportunity for patients to discuss their personal and spiritual concerns.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Chaplaincy Services at St. Luke’s support local clergy?

Denominational lists of patients are available daily in the Chaplaincy Services office.

Parking is validated in the Chaplaincy Services office for those clergy who are visiting members of their congregations who are patients at St. Luke’s. The office is located in Room C165, near the Green Elevators in the Cooley Lobby and is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. After hours, parking is validated in the Security Office, located on the B-2 level.

Many denominations have hospital visitation programs which are particularly helpful to those who are from outside of the Houston area. Please check with your local adjudicatory about such programs offered by your denomination.

You may call the on-call Chaplain to visit your congregant. Please call 832-355-1000, and ask to page the on-call Chaplain to make your request .

How can I support the ministry at St. Luke’s?

The Lay Ministry program provides for patient visitation by volunteers trained in the specialized setting of the St. Luke’s healing healthcare environment. This augments the normal pastoral services delivered by the Chaplaincy Services department. Lay Ministers are especially focused on providing for under-served areas of patient and family needs within designated areas of the health system. Development, training, supervision and coordination of Lay Ministers in this program are the responsibility of the Director of Community of Hope.

This is a program of the Department of Chaplaincy Services in partnership with the St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital Auxiliary. For more information about Lay Ministry, please call Gary Jones at 832-355-3258, or e-mail him at gjones4@sleh.com.

If you are interested in volunteering at St. Luke’s in areas other than Chaplaincy Services, please call the Volunteer Auxiliary at 832-355-1000, or e-mail Pam Lemp, Volunteer Coordinator, at plemp@sleh.com. 

If you would like to support the ministry of Chaplaincy Services financially, please send your contributions to:

St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System
Department of Chaplaincy Services
M.C. 4-184
P.O. Box 20269
Houston, Texas 77225

You can also donate online.

Religion & Spirituality at St. Luke’s

At St. Luke’s, we recognize all faiths and beliefs in our pastoral approach and believe all spiritual and religious rites and symbols represent positive energy, faith, and hope.

We recognize each individual’s search for meaning or for a higher power, as a faith walk. Our mission is to reflect each patient’s faith walk, to become attuned to his or her beliefs and to help him or her draw on those beliefs for strength and support.

Here at St. Luke’s, we have the Cullen Memorial Chapel, located by the Green Elevators, that is used for a number of regular services, special observances, musical presentations and lectures. The chapel is used:

• Sunday
• • 10:00 am - Ecumenical Worship Service
  • 12:00 noon - Catholic Mass
• Monday
• • 9:00 am - Ecumenical Worship Service
  • 12:00 noon - Noonday Prayers 
• Wednesday
• • 12:00 noon - Episcopal Eucharist Service
• Friday
• • 12:00 noon - Noonday Prayers 

There is a Musallah available in the chapel. We have access through both our staff and community resources to many various faith groups. Should you desire to see a chaplain while at St. Luke's, please contact us at (832) 355-3258.

For more information about why professional chaplaincy and the delivery of spiritual care are essential components of quality healthcare, please view this document from CAPPE.org (PDF  )