“Knowing your members are available for visitation is one thing,” says Ron Norman, “but organizing and arranging for their contact is another ball-game.”
Norman, pastor of Village Green Baptist Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, has developed a workable method for mobilizing laity for volunteer visitation.
He began by circulating small questionnaire cards in the church bulletin. The cards featured a short, motivational statement about the importance of visiting hospitalized individuals, church visitors, and inactive members. Two categories of information were sought: the type of visit, and a preferred visitation partner.
Under the first category he listed four choices: ¥ Sick and/or hospitalized :000 ¥ Church visitors
¥ Inactive members
¥ Special situations
The second category listed six choices:
¥ With spouse
¥ With another man
¥ With another woman
¥ With a youth
¥ With one of the pastors
¥ Alone
Members were then encouraged from the pulpit to indicate their interest in the visitation effort by checking any or all of the choices listed, signing the cards, and dropping them into the collection plate.
After the cards were collected, Norman transferred all the information onto a master sheet. Across the top, he arranged the two major categories and the ten subcategories vertically Down the left side he listed the names of the individuals who had signed up; and across from each name he put an X in the categories those volunteers had marked on the questionnaire cards.
Next, he had prospect cards printed. On the front were blanks for the names, ages, addresses, and phone numbers of visitation prospects. (For a hospital visit, the address would include the name of the hospital and the patient’s room number.) On the back were blanks for recording the date, type, and result of each visit. At this point, Norman sent a copy of the master l sheet and a form letter explaining how the visitation l process would work to all the visitation volunteers. 7 In effect, this is what was in the letter.
Let’s say that a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, visit the church this Sunday. We want someone to make a friendship call on them as soon as possible. So, by Monday afternoon, I will have filled out a prospect card on the couple and sent it to someone who has indicated an interest in calling on church visitors. That person may either visit alone, or call a visitation partner from the master sheet of volunteers.
After the visit is made, the prospect card is to be completed and returned to me. I will keep a record of all visits made so no one makes too many or too few visits. This same process applies to visitation of hospital patients and inactive church members.
We will plan for the entire volunteer visitation staff to meet once a month after a Sunday evening service for fellowship and sharing.
Thanks, and God’s blessings,
A visitation model such as this one gives many g benefits:
¥ It provides an opportunity for sharing a church’s visitation load between pastor and laity.
¥ It encourages laity to take an active role in the planning and coordinating of visits.
¥ It eliminates the need of having to meet at the church every time visitation teams are needed.
¥ It facilitates communication among the visitation volunteers. A well-organized volunteer visitation program such as this becomes an important step toward developing a caring ministry in a congregation.
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