5 Things at the Heart of a Pastoral Visit

Pastoral visitation is a powerful means of spiritual encouragement and a tangible demonstration of the love of Christ to his people. It is a ministry which can reap slow but rich dividends in the lives of individuals and the life of the church and provides an opportunity for genuine fellowship between Christians. While I have written before about the benefits of visitation to the life and work of a Pastor, this post will seek to lay bare some of the basic principles of visitation which could be of help to those on the receiving end of it. Not everyone who is engaged in pastoral visitation is an ordained Pastor, and so this post shares more widely about those men and women gifted for and engaged in caring for God’s people (as well as those in full time Pastoral ministry).

Below are five things to bear in mind if and when you receive a pastoral visit:

1. We want to be there

Of all of the opening phrases that I have ever heard in conversation during a pastoral visit, one of the most common is an apology that my time is being used in this way. Pastoral visiting is an unusual thing in many ways, especially given the isolation and individualism of our wider society. As the person being visited it is easy to feel that you are asking something out of the ordinary or unreasonable to have someone come to your home and hear your story. If you are an empathetic and caring person yourself you may fear that a largely one way conversation is in some way selfish, or that it reflects badly on you in some way. None of these things are true. Your visitor, be they your Pastor or a valued member of a visitation team, have chosen to make this ministry part of their life. They are glad to be with you, and these kinds of conversations are not strange to them or an inconvenience. In actual fact, even as you share about your life and faith – be it struggle or joy – they will be blessed and challenged to grow in their own Christian life. Your visitor wants to be with you, and recognising this might just allow you to share more freely and with less fear.

2. We won’t inspect your home

If having people in our homes is not a regular occurrence then we may feel self-conscious about the condition of the place we are bringing a relative stranger into. Many of us feel that an untidy house, a shelf of unwashed dishes, or decor that is not ‘show-house ready’ is a bad reflection on us as people. The truth is that most of the pictures of people’s homes on Facebook are carefully curated, and the homes we go to for entertainment are often sparkling in the wake of a day’s anticipatory cleaning. Your visitor is there to see you, not to inspect the condition or tidiness of your home. I once met someone the day after a visit to their home who highlighted something they were embarrassed about in the condition of their home. I had to inform them that if they hadn’t mentioned I would never have known! I had adopted an involuntary blindness to how their home was because I was chiefly there to see how they were. Your visitor won’t inspect your home, they won’t make any judgements, they won’t share anything about your private space with others. They are there because they love Jesus and they love you in him, and they want to connect with you as a fellow Christian.

3. We will enjoy small talk

Many people can dread a pastoral visit because they don’t know what they will talk about. If the visitor is their regularly preaching Pastor they may fear that the visit will be a kind of doctrinal or scriptural test that they are doomed to fail. They may fear that the conversation will be abstract or academic, or solely about spiritual things. A good pastoral visitor will not bring this dynamic into your home. Small talk is a common grace, a kind of hallway that can ultimately lead into the heart of matters, and is often a powerful way of building a bridge between people. Eugene Peterson has said the following about small talk,

If we avoid small talk, we abandon the very field in which we have been assigned to work. Most of people’s lives is not spent in crisis, not lived at the cutting edge of crucial issues. Most of us, most of the time, are engaged in simple, routine tasks, and small talk is the natural language. If pastors belittle it, we belittle what most people are doing most of the time, and the gospel is misrepresented.

Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction.

Your visitor will expect you to tell them about your interests, your neighbours, and your trivia. If you have family they will be happy to hear about them and your relationship with them. Your visitor will enjoy small talk for its own sake and also for the connection it forges for further and deeper conversation.

4. We want you to be honest

If conversation progresses beyond the superficial and you are able to begin to speak about matters that are concerning you, your visitor will not be in any way shocked or surprised that your emotions will be involved, that you are still working out how to handle your circumstances, and that some things may not come out as you hoped they would. A good pastoral visitor will assume that what you are expressing is written in pencil rather than permanent marker, and will be happy for you to revisit things you say. They won’t be surprised if you need time to process how you’re feeling. They won’t feel awkward if you are a person who finds it difficult to put things into words. They are not shocked or embarrassed by your tears. Struggling Christians should find a sympathetic audience in the individual who visits them, someone who will listen carefully and without judgement, someone who isn’t looking for the best version of the story but an honest and human account of the conditions of their lives. Your visitor wants you to be honest, they will have counsel to give but they likewise have time and space to listen to you in your voice and with your own emotions.

5. We would love to read and pray with you

One of the unique blessings of pastoral visitation is the opportunity to simply read the Scriptures and pray with the person visited. This is often the most profound and powerful part of spending time together in this way, and is one of the unique marks of a truly pastoral visit. Your visitor won’t read the Scriptures as a sticking plaster for some of the complex things you share about, they won’t preach a full blown sermon, but they will have a confident conviction that hearing God’s word together has a formative effect on how we face our lives. They will likewise be persuaded that one of the chief outcomes of their time spent with you is that they can now pray for you and with you in a more informed way. Your visitor would love to read and pray with you because mutual exposure to the word of God in the environs of a trusted conversation is beautiful and beneficial to both parties involved.

Conclusion

Every pastoral visit and every pastoral visitor will be different, the diverse combinations of circumstances and personalities make that inevitable. In common across the board, however, is the fact that a pastoral visit is designed to foster fellowship with you, to encourage your heart, to make you feel heard, and to apply Scripture and prayer to the real issues of our lives. No wonder it is a blessing when done thoughtfully. As the one visited embracing visitation might well prove to lift your heart, feed your soul, and focus your mind afresh on Jesus.