Pastoral Visitation

[Keith Mullins]

I have never been part of a church where the Pastor made regular visits.

Is pastoral visitation still used in this age of high tech gadgets? If so, what does it accomplish? Should appointments be made or drop in unannounced? Is one day or time better than another (of course not late at night or early morning)?

Thoughts?

.

 

[Deacon]

In the 1970’s a church was planted. When the time came to hire a pastor they chose an inexperienced but energetic young man with a simple Bible college diploma.
I researched the early history of the church and came across an interesting document.
Those early church leaders wrote out a list of expectations, they were very specific.
They defined how often he was to preach, the hours he was to work, and how many homes he was to visit each week (among many other things).

The time for routine pastoral home visits has passed.

• Modern society practices have killed it: busy schedules.
• Cell phone and e-mail killed it: alternative forms of communication.
• Covid killed it: social distancing.

Personally, my schedule to so atypical that a pastor would have a hard time connecting with me. An unscheduled pastoral visit would be intrusive.

Rob

 

[Keith Mullins]

Does your POV come from a urban, suburban, or rural background? Does the area make any difference? We are located in a rural Appalachia. The pace of life here is a bit slower, at least in our congregation.

I am evaluating if routine visitation program would be helpful or a total waste of time. And if I do pursue it, how do I go about making it successful. I am hoping to gather information from more experienced pastors.

 

[Deacon]

I’m from a busy suburban community along the I-95 corridor (north-east of Philly) in a congregation of middle to high income workers with either a college or advanced degree education.

It is far removed from such a setting as you have in rural Appalachia. Life runs at a slower pace in some parts.

My elderly mother recently moved to a rural area in northern Florida.
She remarks that the preacher is not very good but the people are quite friendly.

I remind her again and again that her previous church (Presbyterian USA) often drew pastoral candidates from the prestigious Princeton Theological Seminary that was nearby.

Rob

 

[AustinC]

I live in a big city. My Pastor's actually get irritated when I push them to make home visits. They claim they are too busy with Bible study, teaching, phone, email and people coming to church. They also claim that people don't want them coming to their house. We have four full time persons for a church of under 200, but apparently the 3 official pastors are too busy to call on people. Since they don't call on people, I don't call them pastors (shepherds care for sheep and check on them) I call them administrators and preachers, but not pastor's. I wonder if pastor's actually exist except in hills and hollows. I say this with sadness as I observe sheep with no shepherds living in the urban jungle. I have taken on the task of visiting members to check on them.

 

[Salty]

My church is in a small city. I do make pastoral visits - I have not made too many - since we have a very very small congregation. I do some door knocking - mainly in the summer. In the winter - it gets cold up here - people dont want to keep their door open (I dont blame them) and due to the C- Virus - and not knowing you - many will not invite you into their home.

But allow me to share this story - I was intern pastor in another church in this same city. The church had about 100 members - but only 15-20 attendance per week. I took the membership list - and stated knocking doors. I visited this one lady - she was in her late 80's. She was home-bound - no one from that church had visited her in over 10 years.d I must have been there an hour. What a wonderful time of fellowship. A couple of weeks later - was Mothers Day- we gave each mom a rose - and after church we stopped by and dropped a rose off to this lady. Two weeks later - this precious lady went to be with the Lord.
I am so glad that I made this pastoral visit. I will never forget that afternoon, I spent with her. She shall be one of the first I will seek out at my arrival in Heaven!.

For a pastor who says he has no time for pastoral visits - needs to re-examine his priorities.

https://bible-equip.org/articles/ministry-equipping/Visitation.pdf

 

[Marooncat79]

At the 1st church I pastored, I was told that I had ventured into Liberty Baptists Church field and abandoned my own church field (liberty was 2? Miles from the church I pastored).

crazy eh?

 

[Keith Mullins]

Definitely crazy

 

[Dr. Bob]

I tried to visit every church family either in their home or invited to ours/taken out to dinner (my wife was unable to have dinner in our home for a number of years, so her business paid for these dinners. Granted we had about 20 member families and 10 "part time" (Easter/Christmas type) so it was not a great challenge to do that visiting one family a week.

We found the old door-to-door VERY ineffective. Families are scattered with a gajillion activities for kids; often when adults come home from work, they look for down time, NOT uninvited visits.

 

[Salty]

We found the old door-to-door VERY ineffective. Families are scattered with a gajillion activities for kids; often when adults come home from work, they look for down time, NOT uninvited visits.

I have started a new thread to discuss door knocking:

Click here for that link