In some churches, only special groups, such as new members, receive pastoral calls. Frequently, large churches assign one minister, or a team of lay ministers, to handle regular house calls on all parishioners. Whatever your system, here are special ideas to consider for making home visitation a telling ministry.
Pastoral calling in the home has been a venerable institution In many instances, it’s become a stereotype. One pictures a kindly, gray-haired shepherd of the flock, with Bible clutched firmly to chest, knocking on the cottage door of one of the faithful. His gentle summons is answered by a cheerful-looking matron holding a happy baby in one arm and her other wrapped lovingly around the three-year-old hugging her knees. “Why, Reverend Blissful, how wonderful to see you! Please come in; I’ve just taken a coffee cake out of the oven. I know you’ll want to sample it.”
Such bucolic visions were floating in my head when, fresh out of seminary, I rang the doorbell of a home belonging to one of our church families. I should have heard the warning in the casual remark my secretary dropped when she learned of my plans for the evening. “The Smiths? Oh yes, they used to be quite active . . . until we built the new sanctuary.”
I was therefore pleasantly surprised when they greeted my announcement, “I’m the new pastor,” with enthusiasm. They proudly showed me their home, the wedding pictures of their daughter, and the remodeled basement they had worked on for two long years. As the conversation turned to church life, I was happy to hear they were quite pleased with the worship service, the church school program, in fact just about everything, “even though Jane and I don’t get there as often as we’d like.” Mr. Smith, as it turned out, was specially pleased with our church in marked contrast to his former congregation. I should have been suspicious when he spoke angrily and at length of “that kno-it-all who pushed us into a building program.” But the truth didn’t dawn until I got up to leave. It was Mrs. Smith who made the fatal statement. “Yes, pastor, we dearly love it at St. Mark’s.”
The dazed look on my face gave it away. (I learned later not to let my jaw drop open in amazement at unexpected announcements.) “You are the pastor at St. Mark’s, aren’t you?” No, I gulped, I was not. But I was happy to learn they had a new church home and besides, all roads lead to the same place, heh-heh, and it’s been nice talking to you, and have a pleasant evening. Writing it down now, more than a decade later, my ears burn with the same embarrassment they did that night.
Visits in the home have seldom been a source of great satisfaction in my ministry. I can recall times of trying gamely to compete with a television program for a parishioner’s attention, of conversations that centered on the family’s Great Dane (“we call him Marmaduke”), and occasions when I told myself that this time I’d confront a person with his or her lack of involvement in congregational life, only to climb into my car afterwards with head bowed in despair at my cowardice.
I don’t know which is worse: being treated with exaggerated politeness or, more rarely, bearing the brunt of a parishioner’s pent-up hostility. Neither one seems to do me nor the people I visit much good. And so, for much of my ministry I have given high priority instead to hospital visitation and calling in parishioners’ homes after a death or other crisis.
In fact, routine pastoral visitation, characterized by leisurely conversation and perhaps a parting prayer, is a vanishing phenomenon. Schedules of both pastor and parishioner are too full these days. In many respects, the decline of pastoral visitation is cause for rejoicing. Too often it’s been done out of a sense of obligation. Frequently, the most accomplished was an exchange of pleasantries that left both the caller and the called-upon feeling “good” in a vague sort of way. Conversations often did not rise above the level of the insipid.
And yet, even at its worst, traditional pastoral visitation offers ministry. The mere presence of the minister in the home is a sign that the church cares-cares enough to take the time and the effort to be there. Especially for the elderly and the shut-in, this ministry of presence is of tremendous importance. It becomes a confirmation of such persons’ worth; they still count, even though they cannot be present for worship or other congregational activities. Pastoral calling often is a means for parishioners to talk of their fears, joys, and concerns about matters both personal and spiritual. Although not formal counseling sessions, these visits often include helpful counseling.
Family life today, of course, is hardly that of twenty-five years ago. Both men and women frequently work outside the home. Families are broken by divorce and often patched up again, for better or worse, by remarriage. Children live with only one parent or with a step-parent. Even the so-called nuclear family is seldom at home together. A multitude of varied activities keeps its members on the run.
In such a context, how can pastoral visitation in the home be a viable ministry? It is my contention that such a ministry ought to receive a much higher priority than it has in the recent past.
In the field of counseling, pastors have an advantage over a family therapist; they have accessibility to the home. In home surroundings, family members may be less likely to resort to defensive behavior than in a counselor’s office.
Let me illustrate. On a visit to a home in which there have been problems among family members, I saw firsthand the dynamics that contribute to an unhealthy situation. The father began describing to me his recent religious experiences in emotional and highly religious language. He had attended a “Holy Spirit conference” and was extremely enthusiastic about it. I could sense by her nonverbal signals and occasional verbal interjections, that his wife was very uncomfortable with what he was saying. From previous conversation with her, I knew she had strong doubts about the existence of God. I was sure her husband’s comments were upsetting and embarrassing to her. Yet at no time did the husband give any indication of his wife’s discomfort. Even after she apparently could stand it no longer and excused herself from the room, he made no reference to her or what she might have been feeling. Although I did not feel it appropriate at that time to take the role of therapist for what was an obvious family problem, my presence gave me some insights into the conflicts that existed. These insights will help me in future contacts with family members.
However, despite the positive implications that pastoral calling can have for counseling, or at least for an understanding of relationships in the home, I see the primary function of pastoral visitation in terms of spiritual growth: a mission to help the person or persons in that home move into the depth of their human experiences and then to make connections between such experiences and their faith. This occurs when there is a willingness on the part of both pastor and parishioner to give serious attention to the “deeps” of their life experiences, a willingness to risk sharing the pain and embarrassment and joy that such exploration will uncover. It happens when the pastor pays attention to both verbal and nonverbal signals that indicate the parishioner’s willingness to talk of things more important than the weather and the latest ball scores; or when the pastor asks questions that gently but seriously probe the parishioner’s life and faith.
From my experiences and from conversation with fellow-pastors, I’ve learned there are possibilities for genuine ministry through home visitation. Most of my colleagues share the same frustrations I have felt in terms of the superficiality of routine pastoral calling. One of them, however, spoke of the meaningful visits he has when he talks with young people and their parents as preparation for baptism. Another said that visits with couples in anticipation of child dedication were especially productive. Our consensus was that visits which have a clearly defined purpose stand a much better chance of success than those which leave the parishioner wondering: “I wonder what the reason for this visit is?”
With that in mind, let me suggest the model I use for pastoral visitation. I first had to articulate my purposes for a visitation program. Exactly what was I hoping for, for myself and for the people I visited? It helped to put it in writing: “To enable persons to be in touch with the depths of their relationship with God, to others, and to themselves.” Then I developed a visitation plan, which I continue to follow with good results.
I begin by sending the following letter to the church family or individual I propose to visit.
Dear John and Sue, One of the ways Christians grow spiritually is through sharing with each other their hopes, their difficulties, and their faith experiences. I consider that chance I have to share in such ways with the people of our congregation both opportunity and reward in my work as pastor.
I am in the process of visiting in each church home. In order to provide a focus for our time together, I would like you to think in advance about several questions:
1. What has been a personal success or failure or other significant happening in your life lately?
2. What resources did you draw on as you dealt with this event in your life and/or how did you celebrate it?
3. In what ways has your faith experience been important to you?
These are not test questions to put you on the spot. They’re simply a way of structuring our visit. During our time together I’d like to talk with you about them, and any other matters of interest to you.
The church secretary will be making contact by telephone to find a time suitable for a visit.
Yours in Christ,
Soon after I arrive in the home, I make reference to the letter and invite the parishioners to respond to the questions in whatever way they feel most comfortable. I emphasize there are no “right” answers, and that if our discussion takes us away from the questions to other matters, we need not be anxious about it. I point out that the questions are simply tools to help us discuss things we want to talk about.
Using this model for visitation, I find that we are able to move to a deeper level of conversation than usually occurs during a casual drop-in pastoral visit. By addressing the questions directly, we can talk about concerns seldom shared with co-workers, neighbors, or even close friends. Often the visit establishes a bond of intimacy in which it is easy to identify the sacred. If it seems appropriate, I offer a prayer in which we thank God for the way our lives have touched each other during the visit.
Not every visit is a smashing success, of course. On one occasion, the person I visited had the letter in his hand when he greeted me at the door. He announced that he could answer the questions easily enough, and in thirty seconds he had done so. Mission accomplished, I suppose he thought. We spent the rest of our time together talking about the probable causes and possible cures for double-digit inflation!
For the most part, however, the visits have taken on much greater significance. I called on a family who had all but dropped out of congregational life. I discovered the wife at home; she told me her husband had phoned and said the boss needed him to work late. My previous contacts with this couple had yielded mostly small talk. This time was different. “Well, Mary, in the letter I sent you, you may remember there were three questions I proposed we might think about. The first one asks what personal success or failure or other significant event has taken place in your life.”
Her answer was somewhat of a shock. “That question hits home. The truth is my husband and I are separated.” The rest of our visit was spent talking about the causes and effects of this disruptive experience. She was able to express considerable bitterness about the situation. Her confession was, “I feel as if I’m losing my faith.” We began to explore some possibilities for dealing with the changes in her life. Measuring this visit by the goals I had set helped me realize that a successful visit is not necessarily one from which I come away feeling good. Sometimes success means I will “weep with those who weep.”
Ironically, the home I drove to immediately after this visit yielded a much different kind of success. This was a family with whom I have enjoyed personal friendship, as well as a close working relationship in the activities of our parish. Both husband and wife have felt free to come to me for counseling on occasion. I was received warmly and our conversation moved easily into an exploration of issues that the questions in my letter had raised for them. Part of what we talked about was their own relationship. Frequently they talked directly to each other, rather than to or through me, as they expressed frankly both their frustrations and their joys. The honesty, the caring, the intimacy of that visit ranks as one of the highlights of my eleven years as a pastor. At the end, I was able to tell them how much they meant to me, and how they had helped me grow as a pastor and as a person by their concern for me and their willingness to let me be part of their lives.
In Henri Nouwen’s words, visits like these help me and my parishioners to “recognize the work of God in ourselves.” Although Nouwen uses that phrase to indicate the minister’s role, I can testify that I have often been ministered to by these visits. God’s grace can flow not only from the minister to the parishioner, but from parishioner to minister.
Copyright © 1981 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
