Have you ever wished that your elders and deacons would go visiting on their own initiative? Have you honestly admitted how hard it is for you, even as a trained minister, to go out into the parish alone to visit? Perhaps you need to go back to the plan of the Master.
This plan is so unoriginal that I hesitate to write about it, but it has worked so well for me that I submit it with all due credit to the Lord, who instituted the plan of visiting two by two.
No doubt you have given to your board of elders and board of deaconesses and board of deacons lists of names to visit. Then at board meetings you have asked for a report of their work, only to find that nothing has been done. Merely hoping that these officers of the church will visit, without more emphasis than this, is just wishful thinking. Two reasons might be given for the failure: First, visiting takes some courage, and a person alone doesn't have much. Second, the average layman does not know what to say or what to do when he goes to a home.
To combat these two weaknesses, I tried what I have found has helped me, and that is to send these same leaders out by twos rather than alone.
Every church of any size at all has a list of sick, shut-in, discouraged, backslidden, or interested people who want more light on the church. Usually the wide-awake pastor has these names on his pastoral list and his prospect list. He may call on these people, but he can at best make only a few visits a year if his church or district is large.
In our church we have adopted a plan that is working successfully. We have a roll call at our quarterly business meeting, and there discover any who need visiting, who might be missing, or who might be sick. Then these names are tabulated and placed on cards, with a brief notation at the bottom of what to look for whether it is a sick call, a call on an elderly person, or something else. On the reverse side of this card a brief outline map is drawn show
ing where the person's home is. We are now ready to organize these cards in groups of two or three in a given area for two visitors.
We call our quarterly communion Sabbath our visitation day. On that afternoon at three o'clock all the elders, deacons, and deaconesses
gather for about twenty minutes of instructions on just what to say in any given type of home. Usually a mimeographed outline is handed out with a few suggestive conversations and appropriate Scripture texts to be read in the homes. I like to give our visitors something to leave in every home. We always bring the Lesson Quarterly. Usually we add some mimeographed poetry and suggest that these poems be read and then left as a memento of their visit. It tends to give the visitor an excuse to call in the home. We have recently added two tape recorders to the program, and plan to leave one in a home while visiting another in the neighborhood, returning later to pick it up. These wiill have on them a recording of the morning sermon and music. To certain of the homes where it is felt appropriate, the emblems of the Lord's Supper are taken. An elder will officiate and share communion with the shut-in. Occasionally we might take flowers to the sick on that day. By varying the program the visitor feels a greater interest and a greater incentive to go again.
After leaving each home the visitor notes on the card the attitude of the person visited. These cards are handed to the pastor, who will keep them in his visiting file. We have found that in a church of more than three hundred members we can visit on a Sabbath afternoon about thirty to forty people in this way. The work of the elders, deacons, and deaconesses is done, more or less, for a quarter. At least these lay workers have done more than if left alone to visit at random.
We plan to augment this program by sending a junior singing band to many of these homes between the quarterly visits, thus making a contact at least once every six weeks with every inactive church member.
Aside from getting the work done, the church enjoys a number of blessings by following such a program. First, the laymen appreciate more the work of their pastor by doing some of it themselves. Second, the membership is kept alive and active. Last, the visitor gets perhaps the greatest blessing in service.
No plan like this will work, however, unless you work it. That is, you as pastor must lead out. I have generally taken the first elder as my partner, and we have taken the hardest cases.
Who originated this idea? Not I. It came from the New Testament, where Jesus sent His followers by twos, first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and then to the world. Such a program carried the gospel quickly and far in that day. If we will reactivate the two-by-two program today, we will help to finish the work of the Lord on earth and be ready to go home with Him.
If you are looking for something in a great visitation program, don't confuse your members with a minutia of details and a long list of
names. They want a simple program. Why not go back to New Testament visitation, pure and simple? It's worth a try.