I continue to feel blessed of God! How about you? Even in the trials and tribulations of life itself, we can always to look to the ways that we are blessed of God. When things go wrong, there is still much to praise God for. And we need to constantly keep ourselves aware of those blessings and be thankful and praiseful. Remember, Jesus expects us to be full of praises to Him. In Luke 19:40, speaking of his followers (today His followers are called Christians), he said,” I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” As I’ve said many times before, I don’t want a rock to get the blessing I should have gotten due to lack of praise to God. How about you?
I had a question asked of me a few weeks back that has caused me to spend a lot of time in prayer and meditation as I’ve sought to answer the question in my own mind. The question was, “how do you plan and work your congregational visitation?” Looking back to that question, I realize my answer, whatever it was, was probably quite inadequate. I’ve always considered myself to be a “visiting pastor.” I’ve always enjoyed visiting in homes, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Thing is, that health problem (the c-word) our community, country, and world suffered through a few years ago, I believe, changed visitations permanently. It simply changed the mindset of people about pastoral visitation in general, and not for the better in my opinion. Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, “it is what it is.” And we as pastors have to navigate this.
That said, we pastors are visiting as much as we can. Not so much in homes like we used to because people are so busy these days. But we still try our best to visit the hospitals and care facilities as needed.
Another question that was brought up in the earlier conversation was my policy toward visiting with former members of the church. Again, this brought about quite a bit of thought on my part. Frankly, visiting former members is a very tricky situation, especially if those former members are attending another church. I try to put myself in the position of their new pastor. Would I be pleased to hear that new attendees/members of my church were being visited by their former pastor? While for me personally, that probably wouldn’t bother me too much, I can see why it might be hurtful to some pastors.
I guess it all boils down to this. Mrs. Preacher and I love to visit with our dear parishioners in whatever setting that visitation takes place. Due to her work schedule, she is not always able to go with me. But to the extent that it is possible, she loves visiting as much as I do. So please don’t hesitate to let us know if you’d like a home visit. We know you live busy lives, and we understand that. But we can work around your schedule. And please let us know when folks are hospitalized. If we do not know someone is hospitalized, we can’t go visit them. Right?
Let’s continue to work together for the kingdom of God. We are growing! New people are attending! We are having visitors on a regular basis. I believe God has wonderful things in store for our Homestead Church!