Dover Church of Christ  

    Visitation Ministry

James 1:27 "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

Gal 6:1,2 "Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

Suppose a member of one of our families did not come to supper one night--instead the son or daughter or parent decided to stay in his/her room instead. Would that go un-noticed in the family? No way! We would notice that absence immediately and go see what was the matter. The visitation ministry at the Dover Church of Christ operates the same way.

We are trying to be like the first century Christians in every way possible. One way that they were known as being different from the world was by their love. For the past month this newly revived ministry has had about a dozen of us making about 35 visits per week to people in hospitals, nursing homes, to shut-ins and to members who have not attended for awhile. We are enjoying our visits.

The stimulus for these visits comes from the absentee report that members who work in Attendance Management generate each week. When we started this in July the number of people absent from services seemed like a lot. Now the page that has this information from last week has considerably more white space on it than a month ago. That is a big part of what we are trying to do . . . love people back into faithful church attendance.

We try to look to ourselves, lest we be tempted (Galatians 6: 1) while making these visits; we'd like to be humble, and if we aren't, tell us so. We usually call ahead of time to see if the people we are visiting would like for us to drop by. We hope that the work we are doing glorifies the Lord and strengthens the church.

Are you a member at Dover who would like to work in this ministry? Or would you like a visit? We do some "well-patient" visits as well as visits to those who have obvious needs. Please contact Joe Miller or Jim Killer to ask for a visit.