How to Pass APC Board Certification: The Complete Roadmap

What the committee wantsYour theological DNA. Where does your understanding of spiritual care come from? What makes you more than a good listener with a badge? They want your definition of spiritual care, not a textbook definition, yours, and they want to know what in your tradition supports it.

Demonstrates competency

In my tradition, spiritual care is fundamentally about presence over answers, accompanying people into their suffering rather than managing it from a distance. This is rooted in the concept of kenosis, the self-emptying love described in Philippians 2. When I sat with a patient who had just received a terminal diagnosis and she said, "I don't want anyone to pray at me right now," I didn't reach for my prayer book. I sat down and said, "Then let's just be here together." That moment embodied my theology more than any sermon I've ever delivered.

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Does not demonstrate competency

"I believe spiritual care is very important and I try to be compassionate with my patients." (No tradition. No theory. No example. This is a LinkedIn bio, not a competency essay.)

What the committee wantsProof that you know something beyond your own faith tradition. Psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural theory, neuroscience, they don't care which one, as long as you can use it to inform better care.

Demonstrates competency

I draw heavily on attachment theory, particularly John Bowlby's framework for understanding how early relational patterns shape how people cope with crisis and loss. When a family was struggling to let their father go and kept pushing for "one more intervention," I recognized the pattern as complicated attachment, the inability to tolerate separation, rather than denial of prognosis. That reframe changed how I engaged them entirely. Instead of reinforcing the medical team's frustration, I helped the team see the family's behavior as love operating from fear.

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ITP2 is also required in your Clinical Contact Narratives (Part 3). You will demonstrate it twice.

What the committee wantsShow that you understand people differently depending on where they are in their life's arc. A 26-year-old facing a cancer diagnosis is not the same as an 80-year-old facing the same diagnosis, and not just because of age. You need a framework for why.

FrameworksErik Erikson's psychosocial stages, James Fowler's stages of faith, Kenneth Pargament's model of spiritual coping, Women's Ways of Knowing, or any other developmental lens you can name and apply.

Demonstrates competency

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Using Erikson's stages to contrast how a 30-year-old in the Intimacy vs. Isolation stage and a 72-year-old in the Integrity vs. Despair stage both face a chronic illness diagnosis, and showing how your pastoral approach adapted accordingly.

What the committee wantsNot just familiarity with medical ethics buzzwords, they want you to apply a named framework to a real ethical situation you faced.

FrameworksPrinciplism (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice), consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, care ethics.

Demonstrates competency:

When a patient declined blood transfusion on religious grounds and her adult children were pressuring the team to override her decision, I drew on the principle of autonomy as articulated in Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics. I advocated in the care team meeting that the patient's clearly stated, competent refusal was ethically binding regardless of family distress, and I helped the family find a way to honor their mother's choice while expressing their love for her.

What the committee wantsYou understand that chaplains don't just minister to individuals, they operate inside complex institutional systems. Can you explain a concept from group or organizational theory and show it in action?

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Demonstrates competency

Using differentiation theory (Bowen) to explain how a chaplain staying non-anxious in a highly anxious ICU team meeting stabilized the team enough to have a productive goals-of-care conversation. Then showing how that same concept applies to understanding why a palliative care department and a surgery department may have fundamentally different organizational cultures.

What the committee wants

Evidence that you read beyond your own journal and that you apply what you read. Cite a specific study or research finding. Summarize it. Show what changed in your practice because of it.

Start hereIf you haven't done this yet: John Ehman's Article of the Month archive (available via the ACPE website) is a treasure chest of accessible chaplaincy research summaries. Pick one. Read it. Use it. Then write about it honestly.

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Section II: Professional Identity and Conduct (PIC)

The primary question: Do you know who you are as a professional chaplain, and does that self-knowledge show up in how you act?

What the committee wants Honest,mature self-assessment, not CPE-style "growing edges" soul-searching, but a clear-eyed evaluation of where you excel and where you have genuine professional limits. They want specificity, not humility theater.

Demonstrates competency

My strength is working with patients who are angry, at God, at their families, at their diagnosis. I don't get activated by anger, and I've learned to hold space for it without flinching or trying to fix it too quickly. My limitation is liturgical care for traditions very different from my own. When I work with patients from Orthodox Jewish backgrounds, I am careful to immediately connect them with a rabbi rather than attempt ritual support I'm not equipped for.

What the committee wantsThe BCCI is asking you to examine yourself across five specific lenses. Address all five: feelings, values, assumptions, culture, and social location. Don't blend them together into one paragraph and hope nobody notices. (They notice.)

A brief example for each lens

• Feelings: "When a patient reminded me of my father, I noticed a pull toward protectiveness that I had to consciously check."

• Values: "My strong belief in patient autonomy sometimes creates tension when family members want to make decisions that override the patient's stated wishes."

• Assumptions: "I caught myself assuming a patient who declined chaplain services was not spiritual, until I learned she had a rich private practice of meditation."

• Culture: "Growing up in a church culture where suffering was framed as spiritually meaningful has shaped how I sit with people in pain, sometimes helpfully, sometimes I have to consciously set it aside."

• Social location: "As a Black woman in predominantly white healthcare institutions, I bring a particular awareness of how power, race, and authority dynamics play out in care conversations."

What the committee wantsConcrete self-care practices, not "I take walks" but a real account of how you sustain yourself in a role that regularly involves being present to suffering, death, and trauma.

Demonstrates competency

Three sentences: "I promote my own health by [specific practice]. I honor my own emotions by [specific practice]. I nurture my own spiritual process by [specific practice]." Make these real. If your self-care plan is aspirational rather than actual, the committee will probe it in your interview.

What the committee wantsSpecific examples across all four boundary types, physical, emotional, cultural, and spiritual. The BCCI is checking that you understand implicit as well as explicit boundaries.

Does not demonstrate competency

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"I always ask before I pray." That's one example of one type of boundary. It does not address four dimensions of a nuanced competency.

What the committee wants:

Who authorizes you to be in the room? And how do you use, and not abuse, that authority? This includes your institutional badge, your denominational endorsement, your BCC credential, and your clinical role.

Demonstrates competency

Showing awareness of how your authority can reassure patients ("a chaplain means someone is taking my spiritual needs seriously") AND how it can create unintended power dynamics ("a patient may feel pressure to engage with you simply because you're wearing a hospital badge").

What the committee wantsA specific story where you stepped in on behalf of a patient, in an ethics consultation, in a care team meeting, in a conversation with a family, or in a conflict between patient wishes and institutional policy.

Demonstrates competency

A patient was non-verbal and her family was speaking over her in every care meeting. In the next meeting, I deliberately positioned myself next to her, made eye contact with her before addressing the team, and advocated that we attempt communication techniques with her before concluding she had no preferences. Her eyes told me she had plenty of preferences.