Instructor for CTA 5700 – Suicide Intervention
Dr. Chris Bassett has spent 25 years in military chaplaincy and ten years in law enforcement chaplaincy. He started his military career as an aviator and then answered the call to ministry, starting as a chaplain candidate and then serving in positions from battalion chaplain to command chaplain in the National Guard and Reserves. He has deployed to both Iraq (2004-2005) and Afghanistan (2009-2010), and responded to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans and to the Oso, Washington landslide, among other natural disasters.
He served as a detective and patrol officer in King County, Washington for fifteen years before entering into full-time ministry. He founded Passion Worship Center in Bonney Lake, Washington in 2006 and served as the senior pastor until 2020. In Bonney Lake he also served as the police department chaplain. He is currently on hiatus as an RV chaplain in Tampa, Florida.
As a police chaplain, he served with the Tacoma-Pierce County Chaplaincy, teaching suicide intervention at the Police and Fire Training Academy in Burien, Washington. He was a master trainer in Living Works’ Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training from 2008-2020. He received his Doctor of Ministry in Chaplaincy at Liberty University, publishing the first-ever academic study on police and fire chaplains, examining burnout in first responder chaplaincy.
A 1989 graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, Dr. Bassett was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in Aviation and spent seven years flying Hueys and Cobras before becoming a Chaplain Candidate. He graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary with a Master in Divinity degree in 2002. He served in Iraq with the 303rd Armor Battalion as the battalion chaplain and in Afghanistan as the Explosive Ordnance Disposal chaplain for Task Force Paladin.
Dr. Bassett was formerly ordained with the Assemblies of God and is now an independently ordained pastor and chaplain. He has recently completed writing a book on burnout in ministry (title TBD) that will publish late in the summer of 2022. He has another book in the works and plans to be an author and speaker, taking his RV and his wife, Cheri, and dog, Josie, wherever he is called to minister.
He has four children, Caitlin, Juli, Hunter, and Jadin. Caitlin is a published author, Juli and Jadin are in the Air Force and Army (respectively), and Hunter and his wife, Sophie, have just given Dr. Bassett his first grandchild, Milo. Dr. Bassett enjoys a daily fitness regimen for self-care that includes teaching a Bible Study for RVers, running, High-Intensity Interval Training, and furthering his research for his writing habit.
