Lt. Col. Michael Gilbert believes in miracles — or, at least, one specific miracle.

The 71st Flying Training Wing chaplain at Vance Air Force Base, Gilbert has instituted a program that hearkens back to the classic holiday film “Miracle on 34th Street.”

In the film, department store Santa Kris Kringle, played by Edmund Gwenn, stuns jaded New Yorkers, and his bosses at Macy’s, by sending customers to arch-rival Gimbel’s, if the other store stocked an item not offered by Macy’s, or sold it cheaper.

In a way Gilbert and his colleagues in the Vance Chapel are a bit like Kris Kringle. Under a program called Chapel Connections, Vance has joined forces with 17 local churches in order to better point airmen and their families to worship experiences that would be most meaningful for them.

“When I first got here, the traditional speech was, ‘There’s over 100 churches in the local area, just go find yourself one,’” Gilbert said. “That’s a pretty daunting task.”

The Vance Chapel keeps a three-ring binder listing information from all participating churches. Everything from service times to the size of the congregation and the style of worship are included. There also are directions to each church. Each participating church responded to a questionnaire sent out by the Vance Chapel, and each received a visit from chapel staff.

“The people that are better served by a denominational church, we are able to get them plugged in quickly,” Gilbert said, “instead of them hunting around for months.”

This year the chapel staff’s goal, Gilbert said, is to not only increase the number of participating churches, but to expand on existing connections.

“Chaplains provide or provide for,” Gilbert said. “We could pretend that we can meet everybody’s needs here and not let them know about everybody else. Instead, we’ve proactively gone out to find out what’s available in the community and then we proactively, on base, tell people about it.”

This is not, Gilbert said, business as usual in most base chapels.

“It catches people by surprise,” Gilbert said. “I think the Gospel is more effective when you surprise people.”

For those who prefer to worship on base, the Vance Chapel offers Catholic Mass at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, followed by a general Protestant service at 11. A daily Catholic Mass also is offered at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday through Friday.

March 30, the Sunday after Easter, the chapel’s 11 a.m. service will take on a new style called Crosswinds, emphasizing praise and worship.

“It is more contemporary and also will include children’s church,” Gilbert said. “It (the Protestant service) is already a contemporary service, but we’re trying to update it even more, with more audio-visual, more community building.”

The chapel’s attendance varies by the time of year.

“We’re like a college campus,” Gilbert said. “If it’s a long weekend our attendance will be down, and we’re used to that.”

On average, Gilbert said, attendance at the Protestant service will be around 30. Vance was without a priest for six months, so parishioners got used to attending Catholic churches downtown. The Vance parish is growing, but Catholic chaplain Capt. Samuel Licanda soon will deploy.

“If we don’t get a backfill priest we’ll be in the same situation again,” Gilbert said. “It’s hard to keep a parish healthy like that.”

Other chapel-sponsored programs include SIGMO (Single International Gourmet Meal Opportunity), a monthly evening meal for single airmen and spouses of deployed troops, hosted by different squadrons on base.

On Feb. 29, Leap Day, the chapel sponsored “Leap of Faith.” Participants were fed breakfast burritos and then had the opportunity to pray in one of five prayer rooms. Some 60 people attended.

“The cool thing about the chapel is, we have the flexibility to experiment,” Gilbert said.

The chapel staff is certainly interdenominational. Gilbert is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, while other chaplains are associated with the Seventh Day Adventist and Cumberland Presbyterian denominations.

“You won’t find a more diverse staff,” Gilbert said. “There’s no other place has that. And the people who attend come from any background. That’s the great experiment, that people can actually get along.”