Special Strong is pleased to welcome Chaplain Ben Ward, who will lead the franchise’s new Spiritual Strong Chaplain service. Designed for the betterment of employees, franchisees, and clients, and to further the company’s core values of being transparent, relationship-focused, and generous, this new program will provide an added level of support for Special Strong’s executive team and franchisees, as well as leading the company’s ministry and generosity projects.
Special Strong founder Daniel Stein first connected with Ben Ward several years ago at the church where Ben was a pastor and Daniel served as a deacon. They formed a friendship, often having conversations about Daniel’s work and mission, which ultimately led to the decision to bring Ben into the Special Strong family.
Ben has been in ministry for 20 years and early on realized that people came to him for counseling on any number of things pertaining to issues of the soul, worries, stress, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, marriage problems, and business matters.
“Something I began to realize early on as a Christian and in my ministry was that God was using me to help people in that area, so I leaned into that,” he said. He got his Master’s in Counseling and has been a licensed Clinical Christian Counselor for the last 10 years. “Leadership, coaching and mentoring are things that I love, and that I feel like I’m gifted to do. I’m a student of organizational leadership and I love working with friends who have businesses to figure out complex issues with staff and within their industries.”
“One of the things that was so attractive is that relationally Ben is at a different level than most people I know. Ben has always treated me like family and I realized that was missing in our culture,” noted Daniel. This concept serves as a foundational element of Spiritual Strong, which will help to strengthen relationships and develop the focus on family and culture within the company.
With Ben’s involvement, Special Strong franchisees and its leadership team will now have direct access to his coaching and support. He will work to build relational equity, provide executive leadership coaching, and offer counseling and clergy services as needed, such as officiating a funeral or wedding or providing hospital visits.
“I asked Ben to really focus on asking us the hard questions,” said Daniel. “In business, there’s the temptation of putting profits over people. The more we’ve grown, the more we’ve seen that temptation grow and we needed this outside perspective to be sure our hearts are still in the right place. Ben is not a people pleaser. He’s given me difficult feedback that not everyone will – and that’s why his insight is so valuable.”
Beyond the counseling services and guidance offered to members of the Special Strong family, the Spiritual Strong program will expand upon the company’s core value of generosity by initiating a ministry project for the company to be more generous with its profits. Work is already underway to lay the foundations for establishing churches, orphanages, and schools in the Philippines, with plans to expand this outreach in the future.
“The greatest value we have is not our services. It’s our team, our culture, our organizational health,” said Daniel. “Ben is a relationship person. I’m so excited to bring his idea of family and culture to our company, and to make even more of an impact as a result.”
