Parish Visiting

Visiting is a difficult issue in parish life. I continue to regard visiting as a priority (and continue to feel guilty that I can?t do more!) Visiting helps me hear what is going on in people?s lives ? and many sermons start from a chance remark on a visit. Visiting has changed over the years. Visitors are increasingly seen as an intrusion into increasingly busy lifestyles and that same business prevents people from just ?popping round? or ?neighbouring?. Having said that though, a recent survey reported these comments:

"It must be 15 years since anyone from the church made a visit to our home, except to obtain my signature on a covenant"

"I couldn't go to church, but nobody seemed to miss me, nobody called to see if I was alright. When I was ill the Vicar didn?t even phone to see if I was OK."

"It is a very uncaring world now and the church should not be emulating this, but rather standing out against it and being seen as a caring community."

A hospital chaplain writes: "As a Chaplain, I would say that the decline in visiting is of the utmost significance as a determinant of people?s relationship with the church. I frequently hear the disappointment or anger of people who are infirm or unwell and have not been visited by anyone from the church. This can leave them feeling forgotten, or at worst, abandoned. My experience is that many people have a strong perception that this pastoral work should be at the heart of the church?s ministry and are disappointed when this is not the case. I have known a significant number of people who have stopped going to church because no one visited them when they became unwell or unable to attend."

A member of one of our Focus Group, the Pastoral Focus Group, came up with the comment "TOGETHER WE ARE A VISITING TEAM" (Technical advances down the decades means that "visiting" isn't just knocking on doors, but also letters, phonecalls and now emails). The context was a discussion about developing a sensible visiting policy for the parish.

There is a widely held belief that we only bother visiting those who are "members". In fact, we are in the business of caring for every person in the parish. That wholesale care is because God works in the lives of everyone. As soon as we restrict visiting to one person (the Vicar) or to a few (the "visiting team") we limit our vision. Hence the statement that TOGETHER WE ARE A VISITING TEAM.

Church members are to look out for one another, share one another?s burdens, love one another. That way we avoid the culture of dependence which we have often trapped ourselves by. In that trap, some people have depended on a visit and when that visit hasn?t been forthcoming, they have got justifiably hurt and drawn the conclusion that nobody bothers. Sometimes those who have expected a visit would have been better doing some visiting or making a phone call to someone they were concerned about. It?s a bit like J F Kennedy's advice which I paraphrase: "don't think what the church/God/America can do for you, but what you can do for church/God/America". Or "be a radiator, not a drain!"

If it is true, that TOGETHER WE ARE A VISITING TEAM and that members of the congregations are mutually supportive, time clergy spend on visiting can be used for developing new contacts. Presumably this is as it should be with as many as three generations having had little meaningful contact with Christianity. I intend to focus more on new contacts, and to continue hospital visiting and initial baptism and funeral visits. That will leave about four thousand other people!

What we are looking at developing are teams of visitors to respond to people as they live through particular changes in their lives. Baptism care and bereavement care are two obvious examples of visiting. As well as that we would want to offer support for those moving into the parish, those moving away (while they get settled), those moving into residential care focussing on the changes we all go through and the love which God has for us in all of these changes. No list can be exhaustive and I would hope that anyone, of whatever age, will be able to find a sympathetic ear when they need one, so they can find a way through a particular situation or make some sort of sense of where they find themselves.

David Herbert