I wrote recently in response to Sinclair Ferguson’s comments about blogging. My friend Steve Kneale has written more directly with his response here. I share Steve’s sentiments. I think Steve is right to suggest that such comments portray a lack of insight into the nature of Gospel ministry. On a side note, one of the reasons why I appreciate blogs by people like Steve is exactly because he is a pastor on the ground who, even if I don’t always agree with him, I respect and listen to because he is writing directly from and directly to everyday urban church contexts, So, I would not presume that the guy writing a blog, even a smallish blog hasn’t been asked in some way or another for his views on x or y matter.
Anyway, this brings me to my central bug-bear. Too often I hear people talk about the day to day work of pastoral ministry and the go to example is “visiting old ladies.” Why is that the go to? What about old men, single mums, young families, the congregation member in their workplace? It conjures up a safe, genteel image of church life.
To give you a feel for things. Someone recently did a count up of our current congregation. We’ve probably got about 100 people engaging with 60-70 regulars. I think about 40 of the regulars are under 18 with the majority of that group under 11. We have one couple who are in their early 70s. They happen to be part of our core leadership, active in Christian service. Ministry here.
This means that in our context, the urgent priority for the pastor is not about visiting old ladies. It’s not that we as elders don’t spend a lot of time with people, either visiting them, meeting up at a café or inviting them to our own homes. It’s that the priority is not to pop in and have a cup of tea and a chat with the elderly widows to give them a little bit of company and try to ward off the loneliness. Rather, our priority is discipleship. Our reason for meeting with them is to encourage them to grow in Christ, whatever their age. If you have employed a pastor to do anything but that. Then you haven’t employed a pastor, you’ve employed a care-worker.
Back at our previous church, we had a greater number of elderly, although again, this did not reflect the majority demographic of our church. Even in that context, in fact, perhaps more so with a dozen or so in their 80s and 90s, if our model of pastoral care had been that one paid worker made visits to those people, then I would argue that this would have been very ineffective in terms of meeting their practical and social needs. What is half hour with the minister in a week of no visits and contact. We did better at loving those people by encouraging the whole church to be looking out for one another, by ensuring that those elderly people were not isolated, not ignored but part of a loving extended, joyful family. And I wonder how much that contributed to the incredible longevity and vibrancy of so many.
So, I think that if your go to example of pastoral care is “visiting elderly ladies”, then you have misunderstood the reality of many church contexts and the nature of effective pastoral ministry. Not only that but you do those elderly ladies a disservice.
As I write, I think about some of those older people I’ve had the privilege of pastoring. I also think of my mum as she crossed over into her 80s or my grandma who reached her early 90s. Grandma was still active as a Methodist local preacher into her late 90s and then as an active help to my uncle, a Baptist pastor after she moved close to where he was serving. Mum was still travelling out to China each year to serve the Gospel and encourage young believers, only curtailed by the pandemic. Through the pandemic, she was busy phoning people up to encourage and pray for them. In the last week before she went into hospital, her priority had been to phone my mother in law after her sudden bereavement and mum’s last conversations and messages had a heavy focus on the needs of others.
Now mum and Grandma would have and did appreciate visits but the idea that they would be the passive recipients of the minister’s visit, reduced to making s cup of tea before a quick prayer would be to completely misunderstand who they were. Not only do we diminish pastoral ministry but we also diminish our elderly members too when we reduce pastoral ministry to visiting the elderly.
So, to be sure, if you are a pastor or elder, get round and visit older members and have them over to visit you to. Enjoy their company, encouraging them to keep serving Christ with joy and keep growing in him, listen to their advice, let them pray for you. Show concern for them when they suffer. Love them. Do the same for all in the church family. But be careful that you don’t have a model of ministry that instead of properly serving them, diminishes them.
Faithroots 