Pastoral Visitation

    To start out, I want to make sure everyone knows I personally am not, nor have ever been, a pastor. I have been in church leadership for many years and have observed the visitation styles of numerous pastors, both in and outside my own denomination. This is not intended to be a criticism of pastors (I know how hard they work), but a topic for discussion.

    All pastors I have known or observed visit their people when they are in the hospital, have a death in the family, etc. Few seem to have any plan for regular visitation outside of emergencies, and those who do soon fail to carry it out due to the "tyranny of the urgent". While pastors certainly should visit those who are sick or have urgent needs, I would call this type of visitation the "Squeaky Wheel Visitation Plan".

    My grandfather was an Episcopal priest. After a stint as a missionary to the mining camps of Utah, he took a position at a church in Upstate NY. According to my father, he made a commitment with the Lord to visit every family in the church on a regular basis – I've forgotten how often, but it may have been once a year. He used a bicycle at first, but soon got an automobile. The church, which had been on a plateau, soon began growing and kept growing. (and It certainly wasn't because of his dynamic preaching!) There was, however, a price. Neither of his children followed the Lord. In fact, my Dad was hostile to the gospel until the day he died, claiming his father put the church ahead of the family.

    So just how important is pastoral visitation? One church I attended nearly split after one person took offence because the pastor didn't visit people enough. That is an extreme, but I believe visitation can have a strong effect either for good or bad. Unfortunately, the most common visitation pattern I have observed over the years is the "Squeaky Wheel Visitation Plan". Certain people and families with perpetual problems and crisises get visited over and over, while others who appear to have no problems may never get a pastoral visit. I have observed that often these people may be very active in the church initially, but over the years gradually withdraw from church activities and eventually drift away.

    This doesn't mean that the pastor should do all the visitation, either. In fact, the pastor should be training the elders and deacons to do much of it. There will be people who say that they don't want a visit from a deacon, but from the pastor, but it is hard for the pastor to do everything and it is better that they get a visit from a deacon than no visit at all. The pastor does have to do the training, though, and also organize it and see that it is carried out. The biggest hindrance I have seen to this is that most pastors are horrible at delegating.

    Another hindrance to visitation is too many church events and activities. The pastor is required to be at most, and feels that he meets the people there anyway, so further visitation is unnecessary. However, church events are no substitute for getting to know people one on one in their own home. Some people may not want a visit, but at least they should be given the opportunity.

    

    In light of this, I would pose some questions for discussion:

• Is visitation important enough that pastors should put the same effort into scheduling it and carrying it out that they do into sermon preparation?
  
• How does a pastor balance the time required for visitation with the time needed for his wife and family? His sermon preparation and other church work?
  
• Why do pastors have so much trouble delegating?
  
• How does a pastor escape the "Squeaky Wheel Visitation Plan"?
  
• Anything else?