My mom, at almost 92, still has a sharp mind. Her detailed recollection of childhood and life events is incredible. I recently asked her if she remembered doctors making house calls. She did, and then she began telling me some of the times doctors came to her home.
House calls for doctors are a thing of the past and so it seems the same can be said about pastors. Pastors have a tendency to isolate themselves from their sheep in order to preserve personal time and family time. It’s understandable, they are overwhelmed.
We all love the story of the Good Shepherd going after his lost sheep.
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
Luke 15:4-5 (NKJV)
Jesus got his feet dirty traveling around. He didn’t set up shop somewhere and expect people to visit him at his “church” once or twice a week. He became intimately involved in people’s lives. He was intensely relational, he went after lost sheep and he made house calls.
I remember a good friend I had at a large institutional church. When his daughter was born he asked me to be her godfather and I was happy to accept. As he rose in the ranks of hierarchy, he eventually became an assistant pastor. At that point the senior pastor advised him to change his phone number and not give it out to the laity. I had no way of communicating with him and that was the end of our relationship.
The church structure dictates that isolation for leadership is just the way it has to be, but it’s contrary to everything Jesus taught and modeled. My friend only lasted a few years after his appointment, he left the church completely disillusioned. I’m sure many of you would be able to share your own heartbreaking stories.
I like to ask people, who have spent years attending church, tithing and volunteering their time, if they’ve ever been invited to the Senior Pastor’s home just to hang out or even go out for coffee. I’m usually met with puzzled looks as if I asked them something inappropriate. I grew up in churches and have been on staff but I’ve never been invited to a pastors home, never ever. Doesn’t that seem strange? We pour our lives out for a church or ministry and develop only superficial relationships with the hierarchy.
The question is then, whose pattern should we be following? Whose pattern should our pastors be following? Jesus made house calls, he got involved in people’s lives, he went after wandering sheep – does your pastor follow Christ’s example? The model of institutional church is broken, the gap between clergy and laity doesn’t lend itself to forming meaningful relationships. There must be, and there is, a more excellent way and I encourage you to search for it.
6 replies on “Does Your Pastor Make House Calls?”
The article seems helpful and thought-provoking and is quite nicely targeted towards an institutionally-oriented crowd in its vernacular. So it wouldn’t tend to wholly offend, much less fall of deaf ear of those particularly focused in that direction.
What’s not as easy to say or ask is “is the modern day pastor archetype valid or even a biblically present idea or just a mere man made construct?” After all, the word “pastor” never appears in the New Testament and “pastors” only ever occurs once. That’s quite stark when you contrast that absence with the current and entrenched presence we see in the culture regards what’s become that present day ‘office,’ isn’t it? This pastor persona has become proliferated in the institutional expression whereas it seems to be nearly anathema in the picture the New Testament paints of the Body for us. Ecclesiology has been turned on its head by institutionalism and the impersonal and disconnected model is espouses and that’s why we do well to mention these things carefully to those who may yet be asleep while we pray for repentance in our own lives and hearts first and in the lives and hearts of those around us who would consider themselves part of the body of Christ. We have become the ones making the house calls just as we have become each others’ ‘patients,’ “pastors” and even “doctors.”
Great and thoughtful comment. Thank you for sharing.
What an interesting question. I recall 3 times that we had a pastor that made house calls and 2 of them had us over for dinner several times. Looking back, I’m not certain if those three pastors each of which were from relatively small groups of believers, the most being about 65, were just getting to know the flock or if they were hearing from the Holy Spirit an urging to “feed my sheep”. Perhaps being small groups they were looking for help with growth, I can’t be sure of course but I know in the first case I had just had my second child and the pastor made several house calls, very welcome ones I want to add as I was figuring out that new passage of my life. He was a true elder, a wise shepherd that several times after led me to find my answers by going straight to the Lord and the Word. I believe that knowing people like them and through them lay people in those communities we have been prepped to embrace this organic first century church movement. I know for certain in one of those churches situation that they have totally moved from that pattern, bought property, built, big buildings, etc., and from what we hear they are nothing like the group we all started with those many years ago.
Great food for thought Jonathan.
Thank you for your comment. Yes I don’t want to lump everyone together and things are always better when the group is smaller. I guess it’s a heart issue, what happens when the church starts expanding.
When the ekklesia expands grows just pray and the holy spirit go beyond our conttol
Cell multiplication is the basis for life. When a “cell” of people are big and mature enough to split in two naturally (vs bifurcation in a forced/inorganic way), then 1 cell becomes two and those two groups move forward until the process begins again. Whether through mitosis or meiosis, life perpetuates.