Pastoral Visits
Have already emphasized the vital importance of establishing a close personal intercourse with all the people among whom you labor. You can do but little good with your sermons to those who dislike you, and no good at all to those who refuse to hear you. The business of a minister of Christ is, not simply to preach the Word, but to win hearers to the Word; still more, to win them to become doers of the Word. Congregations are built up externally by thorough pastoral work, and then they are built up internally by a thorough setting-forth of Bible truth. It is one thing to attract a gaping crowd to witness a display of pulpit pyrotechny; it is quite another thing to attract and to hold attentive listeners to the gospel of life. When I was a lad upon a sheep farm, I had to gather the flock to the troughs before they could be fed, and I found it a good plan to go out among them with a basket of oats on my arm.
Set it down as a prime rule to spend part of every day in circulating among your people. Do not let your library — no, not even your Bible or your sermon-study, entice you away from your pastoral duties. If your mornings are spent in honest study, you can devote the after-part of the day to itinerating. If you go in the right way to a man’s house, you are very likely to win him and to hold him in God’s house. “The sermon always sounds better to me on Sunday when I have had a shake of my minister’s hand during the week.” This was the very natural remark of a very sensible parishioner. The invitations and instructions of God’s Word come with tenfold more power from one whom we love than from the man who treats us with indifference and neglect.
After all, the chief power of a Christian minister is heart-poiver. That is Christ’s real power over you and me. The pride of a congregation may be awakened by brilliant pulpit displays; but it is personal attention and affectionate sympathy with each individual that bind our congregations to us with hooks of steel. And when we have grappled the affections of our people to us, they will bear any amount of close, searching truth and of the most pungent rebukes of their personal sins, without flinching. I once opened a pulpit-broadside against a certain sin which would inevitably have driven a certain pewholder outside of the doors, if I had not previously got a strong hold on him by pastoral attention in a time of trouble. Conscience often requires a “plain-spoken” minister of God to put a severe strain on the tether that binds him to his pastorate; at such times it is a happy thing for him if that tether is securely fastened to an hundred or more of family altars and firesides. Some brethren make a sad mistake when they imagine that they lost their situations because they preached the truth too faithfully, or because their people would not endure sound doctrine. Perhaps the real cause was that they had been poor pastors, and never had acquired any genuine grip on the personal affection of their flocks. Not one minister in ten is ever dismissed on account of his fidelity to any duty.
Of course, if you are a faithful pastor, you will secure a regular visit to every family in your flock once (or oftener), in every year. But extra emergencies demand an extra call promptly. Sudden affliction demands an immediate visit. If you are a sagacious “watchman,” you will also be very prompt in giving attention to any case of difficulty or disaffection. For example,
Mr. A has become very sore on account
of some scandal raised against him or on account of his pew-rent, or from some imagined unkindness on your part. Human nature gets sore on any spot that is sensitive. Whenever you learn of any such case, put on your hat at the earliest practicable moment, and go straightway to that man, and have a frank, honest talk with him. In a few minutes you may prevent that sore from festering, or may heal it on the spot. Perhaps the man has been injured, and you may redress his injury; he will love you ever afterward. Perhaps he was quite in the wrong, and then you have an opportunity to point out his error and to do him good. Do not be afraid to deal honestly with him. The probe or the lancet kindly used may save him from worse things to follow. Nathan did the best job of his life when he dealt faithfully with a very prominent transgressor.
These prompt dealings with offended people or with “crotchety” people or with backsliders and wrong-doers, are not the pleasant part of a pastor’s work; they are not half so agreeable as attending weddings or visiting warm-hearted, stimulating disciples of Christ. But you are not fit for your sacred office if you shirk any duty because it is disagreeable. It goes against the grain to call upon certain persons; especially to talk plainly with them about their sins or the salvation of their souls. Ah, how often we ministers feel ashamed of ourselves when we find that these very persons were wondering why we did not come to them sooner and interest ourselves in their welfare!
Set it down as a cardinal principle, my young brother, that if you would interest people in the gospel and interest them in their salvation, you have got to interest yourself ln them and all that belongs to them. You must win them to yourself and win them to the sanctuary, if you would win them to Christ. Find out, therefore, where your people live, and keep a careful record of their residences. Be sure to remember where poor old Mr. A or blind
Mother B or bedridden Mrs. C
lives, and never let them feel, that they are neglected. If a business-man in your parish has met with a sad reverse, go at once to his counting-room and give him a warm shake of the hand and a word of encouragement. When you grasp his hand, he will slip the key to his heart into yours. If you learn that the son or daughter in any family has fallen into open disgrace, then is the time for you to pay them a tender visit and give them confidential counsels as well as sympathy. If the tidings of serious sickness reach you from any dwelling, lose no time in getting there. A soul may be very near to eternity and may need your presence most imperatively. The person that wants you is the person that you want. And if you are always on the lookout and always at the post where a service for your Master can be rendered, you will never complain that time hangs heavy on your hands, or that “your field is not large enough” for you.
The excuse that is sometimes made that a congregation is too large for any man’s oversight is absurd. All things are possible to the faithful man who understands the value of time, and is a miser of the minutes. Dr. S. H. Tyng, Senior, was for many years the rector of the largest Episcopal church in New York, and yet he visited every family in his flock. Dr. John Hall, who has at this time the largest Presbyterian parish, and Dr. Wm. M. Taylor, who has the largest Congregational parish, are both systematic pastors; they know the geography of every household committed to their charge. Yet these three men never scrimped their sermon-preparations.
I once took occasion to say that there is about one minister (or two) in every generation who is so situated that he cannot be a visitant of his vast flock. Charles H. Spurgeon is that man in the present generation. With a membership of 4,000 souls, “with the charge of a theological school, a religious magazine and a dozen missions of charity (and tormenting twinges of the gout besides), he cannot be expected to visit eight or nine hundred families. He leaves pastoral duties to his brother and his Board of
Elders. When Mr. Spurgeon does meet his parishioners, he is very approachable and affable.
Pastoral work is a thing to be learned by practice, just like making a hat, or conducting a lawsuit. Books will not help you much; but a genuine heartlove for Christ, and a personal sympathy with human souls, will make you successful. (If you do not possess these two essentials, you have mistaken your calling, and had better get out of the ministry.) As soon as you take charge of a church whose call you have accepted, begin your tour of visitation at once. Do not omit a single house occupied by any one who either attends your church regularly or occasionally. In order to ascertain their whereabouts, make an urgent request from the pulpit for every family (or single person) to furnish you their residence. Also from time to time request all those who have changed their residences to inform you promptly of the fact. I often urge my people to inform me promptly of every case of serious sickness. The neglect to do this sometimes involves serious mischief. I never accept as an excuse for this neglect the remark, “You ought to have missed me from church, and come to inquire after me.” It is not a minister’s business to take the census of his congregation every Sabbath; and a person may be absent from a dozen causes. Ministers are not omniscient; and we must press upon our people the necessity of keeping us constantly informed as to everything in their households which we ought to know — whether it be a case of sickness, or of peculiar affliction, or of a soul awakened to a conviction of sin. Whatever touches your people’s hearts should touch yours. You cannot keep the tie between pastor and flock too close or too strong.
I have seldom found it wise to send word in advance to families in my parish that I would visit them on a certain day or hour. For I might be prevented from coming, and thus subject them to disappointment and annoyance. Unless you are sent for to visit a particular house for a particular purpose, it is the best plan to arrange each day’s visitations to suit yourself. If you come in upon your people unawares (as you commonly will), it depends very much upon yourself whether you are cordially welcomed. If you enter the house with a hearty salutation and a kind word — without a chilling or stately reserve — and if you tell them to “allow you to sit down among them as they are,” without their running off to “dress,” or without subjecting you to formal frigidities of the parlor, you will soon be perfectly at home with them.
When you get into frank, friendly conversation with them, do your best to draw them out. Encourage them to talk about the Sabbath services; the truths preached; the difficulties raised or allayed; the light afforded, or the comforts given. Encourage them to speak of any special effects of the word upon any of themselves. In this way you discover whether you are really interesting your auditors, whether you are making yourself understood, and whether your heavenly messages are producing spiritual results. Fishing for compliments is too contemptible to deserve even a rebuke; but it does cheer a minister’s heart to be told: “Your sermon has helped me all this week;” or, “Your discourse cleared up a difficult passage for me;” or, “I made up my mind last Sunday that I will try to serve God.” Nothing delights me so much as to have a child talk to me about my sermons; for I have tried to adhere to a fixed rule — never to deliver a discourse which did not contain at least something in it which would attract and take hold of every average child in the house. Why is it that so many ministers of Christ forget Christ’s own example in making truth simple, picturesque and intelligible to the young and the ignorant?
When calling on your parishioners, frown down all attempts at gossip, and seal your ears against malicious scandal. If one person has a charge against a fellow-member, and you see that an enmity may be engendered, you may win the benedictions pronounced on “the peace-maker,” by your good offices, an’d so prevent a pimple from becoming a festering sore. The true time to take hold of a quarrel is in its first stages. Of course, if the way opens, you will pray with the families you visit; but they will commonly wait for you to offer to do so.
If any one in the house asks or needs a personal conversation about his or her soul’s welfare, by all means endeavor that it be private. The timid will never unlock their heart-troubles in the presence of others. Sometimes a case will occur which will require several visits, and much probing conversation. Do not begrudge the time. To save one soul is joy enough for an angel; and there is no school in practical theology like dealing with a soul in its struggles and temptations. I hope you will study thoroughly Dr. Spencer’s unrivalled “Pastor’s Sketches.” He was the Bunyan of Brooklyn; the secret of his success was that he always aimed to co-operate with the Holy Spirit.
When in your pastoral rounds, you will sometimes have the opportunity to do more execution in a single talk than in an hundred sermons. I once spent an evening in a vain endeavor to bring a man to a decision for Christ. Before I left he took me upstairs to the nursery to show me his beautiful children in their cribs. I said to him tenderly: “Do you mean that these sweet children shall never have any help from their father to get to heaven?” He was deeply moved, and in a month became an active member of my church. For twenty-five years that man has been glued to me; infinitely better, he has steadily glorified his Saviour.
On a cold winter evening I made my first call on a rich merchant in New York. As I left his door, and the piercing gale swept in, I said, “What an awful night for the poor!” He went back, and bringing to me a roll of bank bills, he said, “Please hand these, for me, to the poorest people you know.” After a few days I wrote to him the grateful thanks of the poor whom his bounty had relieved, and added: “How is it that a man who is so kind to his fellow-creatures, has always been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse Him his heart?” That sentence touched him in the core. He sent for me to come and talk with him, and speedily gave himself to Christ. He has been a most useful Christian ever since. But he told me that I was the first person who had talked to him about his soul in nearly twenty years! One hour of pastoral work did more for that man than the pulpit efforts of a lifetime.