Visiting House to House, Reinterpretation for the 21st Century
By Pastor Eric Brown, Journey UMC
In June of 2001, I stood before my Annual Conference and made a promise. The promise was that I would "visit from house to house." Not long after I answered "yes" to this question, the Annual Conference voted me in as an Elder in Full Connection.
I was in my fourth year of full-time church service when I was ordained, and I had been serving churches for about 7 years total at this time. I thought I understood what I was promising but today, I think a bit differently. I understood, back in the day, that the work of a pastor was three-fold: I was to visit the sick and shut-ins in their home, lead worship, and administer the church. My days were spent with Trustee, Finance, and Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC) meetings, visits to the homes of the older members of the church, preparing for worship, and (for fun) leading a weekly Bible study. This was, as I understood it, my work.
On the edges of this work, I joined the Rotary Club, participated in the Chamber of Commerce, and worked with the local teen program, but this was not my work. My SPRC and my DS told me, over and over, that my work was to visit our elderly, make hospital calls, and be in my office to receive callers. When I promised to "visit house to house," I knew what this meant: visit elderly people in their homes. And I hated it.
Perhaps hate is too strong of a word. I was busy up to my eyeballs, but I was not having much fun. I had the church running like a well-oiled machine. I was out every night of the week and attended meeting after meeting. In the midst of the busy-ness I had the sense that I was missing something. And, truth be told, my little church was . . . well, little. We got stuck in neutral and did not grow. And I was not satisfied. I was not sure that God had called me to a ministry of visiting and maintenance.
I am convinced today that "visit house to house" means something very different than I once thought it meant. Today I think Wesley's question was about evangelism, not about pastoral care. With all due respect to the DS and SPRC, I am now convinced that they had it wrong. Visiting house to house is about the people we do not yet know, not about the members of our church. "Visiting house to house" requires that pastors abandon their offices to spend their days meeting new people and networking. To faithfully fulfill Wesley's call to "visit house to house" requires we find new people where they live, where they work and where they play.
Consider all of the places where people gather in your community, their houses, if you will. On Monday nights, bars and restaurants around your community are full of people watching Monday Night Football. Look at the park on Saturday morning, hundreds of children and their families are gathered every season for sports. Consider the coffee shops in your town. Think of the breakfast restaurants where "regulars" gather every morning. Look at the clubs that exist in your town, groups such as Rotary or Kiwanis. Look at the business networking groups sponsored by your local Chamber of Commerce. Look at the community non-profits (groups that have mission statements and hearts that match our own), places like the local food bank, the local boys and girls clubs, community sponsored agriculture and the like. I submit to you that our promise to "visit house to house" in the 21st Century requires we spend the bulk of our ministry time in these places, not serving the people of our churches.
In his blog on Wesleyan Leadership, Steven Manskar, Director of Accountable Discipleship for the General Board of Ordained Ministry (http://wesleyanleadership.wordpress.com/2010/10/), reminds us that the historical questions were developed for John Wesley's Lay Helpers. The Helpers' job was to visit the Societies (these were the weekly small accountability group meetings) to check up on how things were going. They would collect money, attendance, and generally oversee the development of the small groups. The Lay Helpers were not doing pastoral care; rather, "visiting house to house" was an administrative task. If Manskar is correct, the meaning of "visit house to house" has already made shifts in the past 250 years. I argue that it is ready for another shift in meaning. The latest shift is from pastoral care to evangelism.
What, then, is a pastor to do all day? I hope that pastors, SPRCs and DSs are regularly asking this question. The answer, for me and mine, is that a pastor is supposed to be "visiting from house to house" all day. For me, this means that I visit each of my Sunday guests in their home, briefly, each week. This means that I do my computer-work (attendance tracking, sermon writing, website maintenance and the like) at the coffee shop, not in my office. It means that I find ways to attend those sports events at the park (if you do not have kids involved, go cheer on some kids in your church). I join boards, sit on community committees, attend Chamber of Commerce events, and do everything I can to be everywhere. (Pastor Jay Cooper, who is planting Jacob's Well Church in Chandler has an awesome list of "houses" that you might visit, if you need some more ideas. Contact Jay at http://churchremix.org.)
What do you say? Has the meaning of "visit house to house" shifted? Is the 21st Century pastor called to new work? Perhaps your answer is "no!" Your context and your personality may not fit this style of ministry, and I understand that. In a postmodern era, there is no one right answer. Rather, the answers are "both-and," meaning that ministry is both pastoral care and evangelism.
Yet my point still remains: I believe that the primary meaning of "visit house to house" is the work of evangelism. The houses you visit in the 21st Century are not those of church people, but rather those of strangers. Will your SPRC and your DS allow you to focus your work outside of the church rather than inside the church? I invite you to continue the conversation at the Desert Southwest Conference Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/dscumc).
John Wesley and Coffee House photos courtesy of UMCOM. Photo on the right is courtesy of Pastor Eric Brown. It is Pastor Eric Brown and his son, Griffin, age 7.