David H. C. Read, then chaplain to the University of Edin burgh, gave a vivid description of what a certain ministerial intern considered the ideal building plan for church and manse: "The salient feature was a long, straight corridor with a door at one end leading out of the manse study and a door at the other end opening into the pulpit of the church."1
Dr. Read called such a "theologically cushioned, isolated study" "a lethal chamber." He continued, "It is a dead word that is carried out along the corridor, . . . not the Living Word, spoken, as it must be, from heart to heart and life to life." 2 He suggested that "the road from study to pulpit" is not without distractions or interruptions; rather, it runs ' 'out into the noisy street; in and out of houses and hospitals, farms and factories, buses, trains, . . . [and] up between rows of puzzled people to the place where you are called to preach. . . . For the Living Word there is no bypass road from study to pulpit.'' 3
Certainly, a generation ago there was general consensus among ministers and people that such home visitation was an essential part of pastoral care. It was taken for granted that though some might "dread the task" 4 and even find excuses for not doing it, nevertheless visiting was integral to a caring minis try. The only ones who could hope to earn exemption were a charismatic elite whose preaching was so dynamic and attractive that people would come to their churches regardless of whether they visited or not.
Other pastors viewed visitation as a means of promoting church attendance, a strategy for pew filling. Congregations seemed in tacit agreement. They affirmed the old saying that "a home-going minister makes a churchgoing people." I know of a pastor who men tally checked out the absences of his people each Sabbath and during the week following set out to round up the scattered flock. If you were away for any reason at all, you could depend on his knock at your door!
But this rounding up of the flock seems not to be a priority now. The traditional hands-on home visit is regarded as time-consuming and even trivial. "The church must be identified with and engage the world." "The church's time should be invested in matching community needs with pro grams and services staffed and per formed by specialists." "The world must seek and find the church where its needs can be met. After all, we have to move with the times; people have changed their living habits. A particular address on a street is not necessarily the place where people can be found.''
A changing society
What kind of social world is it with which the pastor must deal today?
1. Wives now are more likely to work outside the home than to be homemakers. According to the National Association of Working Women, working mothers are flooding the workplace. An estimated "63 percent of women with children under 18 have jobs—almost three times the percentage in 1960." It is further claimed that "of all demo graphic categories of workers, the fast est growing one is made up of married women with children under the age of 2." And "some predict that by the year 2000, 75 percent of kids will have working moms." 5
Day-care centers are an established institution. Also, women who have no wish for formal employment are, with remarkable frequency, involved in activities that take them away from home during the day. Modern home appliances greatly reduce the time required for housework.
2. People are working longer hours than they used to. Demographers assert that "the average American works 20 percent more today than in 1973, up from 40.6 hours to 48.8 hours, and has 52 percent less free time per week, down from 17.7 hours per week to 8.5." 6
Incidentally, flats, condominiums, and apartments are an increasingly acceptable venue for living, especially among the yuppies. These abodes have become glorified dormitories where their occupants are to be found "home" only in the evenings and on weekends— and even then spasmodically.
Church growth consultant Monte Sahlin states: "In the industrialized nations many people simply have less time to be at home for a house call. The window of opportunity for visiting in homes now consists of weekends and only perhaps two or three hours in the evening. These are also the times when committees must be scheduled, Bible classes taught, etc. The concept of a pastor visiting in the homes from noon until evening is simply no longer a reality. With a decrease in the time available to make visits, fewer visits are made and fewer people get visited. The priority usually goes to 'crisis' situations."7
3. The retired and elderly are much more mobile than they used to be. These people, formerly categorized as "shut-ins," are increasingly more mo bile and less housebound. Community clubs, senior citizens' associations, and retirement centers offering every conceivable distraction and "dream come true" environment are proliferating. Their facilities open early in the day and continue into the evening, and some of the elderly come home only to sleep. Further, "many retired people ... are returning to the work force." 8
4. In these times, making house calls may be a breach of etiquette. In the early years of this century, tradesmen delivering groceries, meat, milk, and bread called at homes. These purveyors have all but disappeared. Monte Sahlin reflects: "The well-known companies, such as Fuller Brush in the United States, are no longer selling door-to-door. Even Tupperware and Avon have shifted from in-home selling strategies to placing their products through stores. In part this is because of the large numbers of 'not home' results from sales calls, and in part it is a recognition that popular etiquette has changed and it is no longer considered good manners to come to the door of a home without an appointment."
The family doctor who in bygone days could be depended on to come to the house for even minor ailments and at short notice is no longer available. Group practices and medical centers are now the organizations and places where people go for care. Wrapped in the stainless steel of gleaming technology, they offer specialized treatment for every human malady.
If physicians are now considered consultants rather than house callers, why should it seem incongruous for ministers to speak of their studies as offices and to keep visiting hours by appointment! These modern realities of radically changed lifestyle attach less significance to the place of residence.
An outmoded practice?
So what about the traditional pastoral visit in the homes of parishioners? Is it a vestigial remainder of an abandoned ecclesiastical past, now to be discarded because times have changed? Or is there a theological rationale adequate to sustain this practice?
The core of the answer is that we represent a prevenient God—One who goes before His people and anticipates their needs. As biblical faith sees it, the primary movement in salvation is not humanity's search for God; it is God's search for humanity. This thesis forms something of a watershed between the Christian faith and other religions. God is not to be found through intellectual search, nor through mystic exercise. He is the God who seeks people where they are.
The figure of speech is not absolute, for the Bible does speak of people seeking after God. But when we look into it, this movement of humanity to God is itself based on His initiative. There are so many words that speak of the divine initiative—salvation, redemption, reconciliation, justification. And, of course, the Incarnation is the most powerful sign of God's coming to and being with human beings. God became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to "visit" His people: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people" (Luke 1:68, RSV).
It is surely not pretentious to make a parallel between the visiting activity of God and that which is done on His behalf by His church representatives. Is not the activity of the church meant to convey what the work of God is like? So the idea of visiting is deeply embedded in pastoral ecclesiology. Indeed, the church's missionary activity finds its validation here. Logically, then, the home visit assumes its own importance and carries its own sanction. Home is still home; it is the special space that people occupy, where in most cases they still "feel at home."
If the church capitulated to the homelessness of modern society, it would be an affront to that which is known about the nature of human beings, biblically and psychologically. The church must affirm humanity's sense of a need of a dwelling place, our need for an address. If it is now more difficult than it was to find people at that address, then we must recognize the plight and make extraordinary efforts to find them where they are. In a pastoral appeal to the clergy of her day, Ellen White wrote, "To my ministering brethren I would say, . . . Reach the people where they are." She went on to say, "This work cannot be done by proxy. . . . Sermons from the pulpit cannot do it. ... If it is omitted, the preaching will be, to a great extent, a failure." 9
Disarming their fear
Let's construct a scenario. A minister calls at a strange house. He is not even familiar with the names of the occupants. He may get no farther than the doorstep, but there he learns the occupants' names, and they hear his—and may even remember it. They can never meet again as total strangers.
It may be that a time of need will bring them together again. Or that first visit may so disarm the fear that the householders had of being visited that they invite the minister inside on his next visit and eventually establish a relationship. People seldom find faith other than through relationships with other Christians. While pastors are not the only ones who can make such a connection, experience teaches us that it is their pioneer visits that make possible the visits and personal involvements of others. 10
A significant hindrance to the visit at the door is that the visitor is often perceived as someone trying to get something. His or her presence could even be considered an invasion of personal space. The "sect" visit is often of such an intrusive nature. Recently two Mormon elders visited me. They were interesting and quite handsome men, but there was absolutely no possibility of a genuine personal meeting. Their agenda required submission to a set of religious beliefs. It was a barrier we could not put aside.
Not infrequently, visiting ministers are viewed in this unhappy light—at least initially. There is a utilitarian association: they have called in order to raise church attendance or, even more commonly, to raise money.
So, in many cases, the coming of the church in visitation has lacked even the appearance of grace. Those being visited have not learned what it is to be accepted with unconditional positive regard—in other words, with no preconditions, no time limit. They have not experienced the church's patience. Dare we say that this has prevented them from understanding God's patience? "The Lord waits to be gracious to you" (Isa. 30:18, RSV). There is no act of grace in which the elements of waiting and patience are absent.
This, of course, does not mean that the visit should make no demand. To make no demand or request of any kind would in the end be an affront, an indication that the one visited was of no account. To ask nothing of a person is to devalue that person. H. H. Farmer, perhaps adapting a phrase from Augustine, frequently said "the demand of God is the comfort of God.'' But before one is ready for the demand, he or she must experience being accepted for one's own sake. The one being visited must see the demand the church makes—and so the demand God makes—as arising from something different than an ulterior motive, an at tempt to use him or her. That person must see the demand as part of the gracious relationship.
Representing God's love
Lesslie Newbigin writes: "Pastoral visiting represents that loving, caring relationship [of God]. The pastor visits every member of his congregation, however poor and insignificant, not because he is useful for the parish pro gram, or because he is influential or helpful, but simply because he is one of God's children, to beloved and respected as he is." 11
This means that all people in the parish—whether they be officeholders, members, or of no affiliation whatever—are to be visited. Ellen White instructed the minister to "visit every family, not merely as a guest to enjoy their hospitality, but to inquire into the spiritual condition of every member of the household. [The pas tor's] own soul must be imbued with the love of God; then by kindly courtesy he may win his way to the hearts of all, and labor successfully for parents and children, entreating, warning, encouraging, as the case demands."12
Visitation represents God's recognition of each person, whether he or she be well or ill, in good times and in bad times. The minister calls upon the people in the name of God, as they are and where they are.
The apprentice method
By Monte Sahlin
Most pastors today will not be able to make enough house calls themselves
to care for their flocks adequately. In Twelve Keys to an Effective Church,
Kennon Callahan shows that each week a healthy, growing congregation will
make visits equal to 20 percent of its worship attendance. If you are the
pastor of a congregation where the Sabbath attendance averages 200, that
means 40 visits a week. Callahan observes that half of these visits should be
made on members (including inactive members) and half on prospective
members (including those who have visited your worship service). His work
with more than 400 Protestant congregations during the past three decades
clearly demonstrates that any church that achieves this level of visitation will
not fail to grow.
Obviously, in order to achieve this goal pastors must involve church
members in the ministry of house calls. This cannot be done by delegation
alone. Church officers and other volunteers are busy too, and will not make
visitation a priority unless they see the pastor making it a priority.
The pastors with the most successful visitation ministries use an apprentice
method of training lay visitors. They take volunteers with them on several
house calls, and when the volunteers have developed sufficient skill, the
pastors encourage them to visit on their own.
Group training processes also work very well, especially when they are
done in connection with on-the-job coaching. And to draw optimum results
from the visitation program, one must provide continued support of trained
visitors. Group sessions serve this end well.
Reference Notes:
1 David H. C. Read, The Communication of the
Gospel (London: SCM Press, 1952), p. 47.
2 Ibid., pp. 62, 63.
3 Ibid., p. 63.
4 Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, p. 338.
5 9 to 5 Profile of Working Women as cited in
"Lifestyles America 1990s" (a proprietary report
provided to clients in January 1991, by Research
Alert, New York), p. 13. "Currently, six in ten
moms are in the work force—that may climb over
70 percent by the end of the decade" (ibid., p.
571.
6 Ibid.,p. 79.
7 In a conversation with the author.
8 9 to 5 Profile of Working Women, p. 79.
9 White, p. 188.
10 See box, "Visitation: The Apprentice
Method," by Monte Sahlin.
11 Lesslie Newbigin, The Good Shepherd
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1977), p.
39.
12 Ellen G. White, Evangelism, p. 347.
