IWP Alumna Spotlight: CH (COL) Karen Meeker, U.S. Army

“The things I learned at IWP helped me think through the constitutional basis for our country and our religious freedom and prepared me to have some great success in multilateral engagements with our U.S. embassies in Asia, Africa, and Europe.”
– CH (COL) Karen Meeker, U.S. Army

The first woman chaplain to serve in Special Operations and the first woman chaplain jumpmaster, Chaplain Karen Meeker came to IWP for a U.S. Army War College Fellowship for her last assignment as a Lieutenant Colonel. She used her year at IWP to prepare herself to be a Chaplain Colonel in more senior positions.

Today, Chaplain Meeker serves as the Executive Director of the Armed Forces Chaplain Board, the only full-time Chaplain position in the Office of the Secretary of War. There, she is working on policies for religious endorsers of Chaplains and for defining the spiritual fitness domain, while advocating for modernizing the Army’s chapel facilities.

In an interview with IWP, Karen shared with us how she was called to ministry at the age of 12, learned military culture firsthand to prepare for her ministry, and has supported service members and changed lives through her work.

An Early Calling

Chaplain Meeker grew up in northeast Pennsylvania in a community where the church was at the center of her family’s life. “There was a very strong sense of community, faith, belief in God, patriotism, and service,” said Karen.

When she was 12 years old, Karen felt the call to full-time ministry. She discussed the calling with her pastor, and he and the congregation affirmed her calling. In high school, she realized that she was called to serve as a chaplain in the military.

She spent the next 11 years preparing for this mission.

Preparing to Serve

“A missionary learns the culture and language of the people they serve,” said Karen. “That is how I approached my preparation to be an Army Chaplain.”

During high school, she completed basic training, which gave her the soldier skills she would later rely upon in the Army. She went on to participate in ROTC while studying at Bucknell University, where she found the military’s leadership development especially valuable.

Karen later attended Harvard Divinity School, where she studied alongside students from a wide range of religious traditions.

“We had 12 world religions and over 40 Christian denominations in my class,” she said. “It was a sharpening experience.  I came out on the other end with my faith more secure than ever.”

After returning to central Pennsylvania, Karen served in the United Methodist Church and completed her requirements for ordination as an elder. She gained experience in a variety of ministries, including hospital, rural, prison, and inner-city ministry, as well as mission work in Pennsylvania and the West Indies.

Serving as an Army Chaplain

After these diverse experiences, Chaplain Meeker began her Army career with the 82^nd Airborne Division, where she worked on a new ministry called Chapel Next, which brought people together for prayers, service, and fellowship.

She later served as Executive Officer of the Chief of Chaplains at the Pentagon, division Chaplain with the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Chaplain for CENTCOM Forward Jordan.

She then returned to Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Army War College Fellowship at IWP, which prepared her for higher levels of leadership within the Army.

An IWP Fellowship

“The U.S. Army War College Fellowship is a phenomenal year for our military officers to step out of the operational demands for a school year and to really study, think, engage, reflect, write, and present research,” said Karen. “I prayed that God would use this year for me to be able to contribute to our military, our national security, and our nation’s freedom.”

Karen made the most of her year at IWP. She completed five research projects, traveled to Rome and Paris, presented at the Brookings Institution, and was published in The Washington Times.

Through conversations with IWP faculty members and founder Dr. John Lenczowski, she also reflected on American founding principles and religious liberty.

Those lessons became particularly valuable in her subsequent assignments, where she engaged with U.S. embassies and foreign military and religious leaders.

Promoting Stability in Africa

When assigned to U.S. Africa Command, Chaplain Meeker worked closely with U.S. embassies across Africa, using relationships and multilateral engagements to advance freedom and strengthen partnerships.

“IWP prepared me to do that,” she said.

For example, at the 2024 International Chief of Chaplains Conference in Belgium, Karen brought 11 military Chiefs of Chaplains from countries across Africa to the event. Through trilateral engagements, they discussed how chaplains, state partners, and the U.S. National Guard could work together to support chaplain training in their countries.

“Because of those discussions, we are seeing progress today,” said Karen.

In another engagement, she worked with the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to bring together the Greek Chief of Chaplains and the Patriarch of Alexandria to discuss the influence of Russian Orthodox priests in Africa following the split between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Churches.

She also brought together senior Catholic and military religious leaders in Djibouti, along with the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the needs of Djibouti and its chaplains.

“These kinds of engagements can have enormous impacts on country relationships and stability in an entire region that is very unstable,” said CH Meeker.  “IWP helped me tremendously in seeing the world and its connections. Religion crosses lines on a map.”

Creating Policy for Military Chaplains

Today, as Executive Director of the Armed Forces Chaplain Board, CH Meeker leads a group that advises the Secretary of War.

As the one full-time chaplain in the Office of the Secretary of War, CH Meeker is advocating for greater representation of chaplains in this office to ensure they can get the resources, policy revisions, and staffing they need so they can better serve our service members in the field.

Much of her work revolves around policy. She is reviewing requirements and accountability policies for the 143 religious organizations that currently endorse military chaplains, as well as applications from additional organizations seeking to become endorsers.

She is also working on the Department of War’s policies for religious accommodations.

“It’s fascinating work,” said Karen. “Our first freedom is the free exercise of religion.”

Another major project is advocating for funding to renovate and modernize Army chapel facilities. These renovations would help ensure that military communities have safe and welcoming places to practice their faith.

Karen is also leading an effort to examine the spiritual fitness domain within the U.S. Army’s Total Force Fitness framework, which includes the following domains: cognitive, physical, psychological, social, and spiritual.

“We are putting God into the definition of spiritual fitness: to have strength in God is spiritual fitness,” said CH Meeker.

While secular counselors can serve everyone, chaplains have a unique role in helping service members draw upon their spiritual beliefs to navigate life’s challenges.

“Research shows that a strong connection to God gives meaning and purpose to people’s lives,” said Karen. “It doesn’t mean that life will be smooth sailing – military service could demand life and limb. But faith gives grounding for life.”

Meaningful Moments

For CH Meeker, the most rewarding part of her work is the relationships with our service members. She finds it inspiring to see them come to faith and to walk alongside them, supporting them in their faith.

“As a chaplain, we often get to be there in those life moments – graduations, commissionings, weddings, baptisms, retirements – and the hard things – memorial ceremonies, funerals,” said Karen. “It is such an honor to be able to come alongside people, either on the mountaintop experiences or dark valleys, to support the troops in that way.”

At other times, she sees the difference that faith can make in a person’s life. Sometimes if a person is at a dead end while their life goes in the wrong direction, Karen said, “The grace of God can turn everything around. A person truly comes to life. It’s incredible to see that.”

A Life of Service

Throughout her career, CH Meeker has sought to bring together her faith, her commitment to service, and her understanding of the broader principles that shape American national security. Her time at IWP gave her an opportunity to reflect more deeply on those principles and to prepare for the leadership roles that followed.

Looking back on that experience, she expressed her gratitude for the education and community that helped shape her approach to service.

She noted, “I have tremendous gratitude for IWP. I pray that IWP will continue to be a light of truth and justice, and a place where people who want to serve in national security can learn the craft in a way that will make our nation stronger and be enriching to their lives as well.”

 

Please note: The views expressed here are CH Meeker’s personal views and do not constitute endorsement by the U.S. Department of War or U.S. Army. The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) or Military-themed visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.