Sick and Shut in Visitation

The Lord has been dealing with me concerning our church doing a better job of visiting our sick and shut-in members. Although health has robbed some members of our church from attending as faithfully as they would like, they still are our members and deserve the same love, attention and benefits that membership affords.

The ironic thing is even though sickness has robbed me of the personal pleasure of having them in our corporate worship, these members still worship God faithfully every Sunday sending their tithes and offerings to the church. In some cases, they give more consistently then members who attend church every Sunday.

During my devotional and quiet time, God spoke to me on this issue and it became clear that our church and ministry would come under the punishment of God if we continued to cash checks from people we weren't having the Christian courtesy of going to see.

The foundation that our church rests on was laid by the hard work, sweat, money and dedication of members who now hindered by age, physical or health problems or mental disease are no longer able to do what they once used to do for the church; however, they still deserve no less than any other member in the church.

The world uses people up and when your usefulness is gone, it will throw you away but surely God's house should be different. If you are blessed to attend a church where the worship is hot, the choir ministry is a blessing, the youth and young adult ministry is relevant and where all facets of ministry to the total man is given, it just didn't happen by accident. Someone paved the way for the roads we walk on now. How dare we use the same roads they paved, to walk over and walk by these people!

I realized as a pastor you can't complain or fuss about anything you have not taught and while members and leaders may have been in positions in the church for a long time, we can never assume they know what they should be doing. It is the pastor's job to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

It is in this vein under the direction of Deacon Henry Turner, a walking example of the term "servant", we have begun our "Lost Ministry" at Macedonia. Our purpose is to "Sweep the Room, Search The Region, and Stand Ready to Receive". We started this week visiting our sick and shut-in taking Communion to them, seeing about their needs and what we as a church could do to make things better for them.

I was overwhelmed watching the joy and pride that filled these members as they walked around in the nursing homes or called their families to say, "My church came by to see me", or My church brought me Communion", "MY CHURCH LOVES ME".

We must start living out the creed and song we sing, WE ARE MACEDONIA AND WE'RE CALLED TO HELP SOMEBODY". God help our church from the pastor to the membership have a heart for the lost. Cultivate within us a desire to sweep for, search for and stand ready to receive what you bring our way. Teach us to show love in our actions, kindness in our deeds and Christianity in our walk. God, we just want to please you.

Owens