It was one of my visitation days. I rang the doorbell and waited. The door opened and the voice inside suddenly said "Boo." I was surprised. The church member quickly apologized and invited me in, with the explanation that opening the door and seeing a minister there so surprised her that the word "boo" involuntarily slipped out. She said that although she had been a church member for 14 years, this was the first time she had been visited by a pastor.
We must proclaim the Word of truth through which people are brought into the household of faith. We must also put forth every effort to reclaim those who have stopped attending church, and retain our members through a living, dynamic nurture.
Laying it on the line
Most of us realize that in North America (and in other parts of the world), our active church membership is much less than our book membership. And too many of us are not seriously concerned about non-church-attending members. Often, if church attendance appears good, both pastors and members seem satisfied and don't seem to miss the absent members, especially in the deeply personal kind of way that makes a difference.
I'm convinced that pastoral and member visitation in the homes of our people, or the lack of it, has a significant impact on the progress or decline of our ministry. Visitation also affects the actual spiritual condition of our members. Yet this is one aspect of pastoral and church ministry that is seriously neglected.
To lay it on the line, the ratio of church attendance to church member ship in our churches would not be as low as it is if our pastors, associate and assistant, along with our church members, were carrying on a concerted, aggressive visitation program.
I live in the Los Angeles area. It has been reported that there could be as many as 40,000 former Seventh-day Adventists living here. The accuracy of that number can be questioned but undoubtedly there are large numbers of former Seventh-day Adventists living in many major cities and in small cities, villages, and hamlets in North America and elsewhere.
If we visited estranged members . . .
We might have a significant impact on reducing those numbers of former and absentee members if every Seventh-day Adventist church became involved in a strong, spirit-filled, love-oriented visitation program.
This kind of visitation program is one type of evangelism that can be carried on nationally and would not cost much money. If this visitation were enthusiastically entered into for six months in North America, on a concerted basis, the results would be exciting. Once the results were seen, many conferences and churches would make it an ongoing function of ministry.
This familiar statement is before us: "[The minister's] work is not merely to stand in the desk. It is just begun there. He should enter the different families, and carry Christ there, carry his sermons there, carry them out in his actions and words. As he visits a family, he should inquire into their condition ... He should talk with all the members of the flock; with the parents, to learn their standing; and with the children, to learn theirs."1
Why not initiate a well-planned, six month program of concerted visitation of those in your church or district who have become estranged and stopped coming to church? Obtain their names, organize and instruct visitation teams of two with pastors leading the way. Call on the missing ones. Listen to them and find ways to reach their hearts. From there, the sky's the limit
1 Ellen G. White, Testimonies to the Church, vol. 2 (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press® Pub. Assn, 1885), 618, 619.
