Bishop Asbury Speaks

Those of you who know me and those who have read this blog know that often enough I bring up the practice of visiting house to house.  This kind of evangelism freaks people out for a whole variety of reasons we can talk about later.

What I want to bring up here is the vow we take as Methodist pastors.  “Will you visit from house to house?”  All those who are ordained as Methodist pastors get asked this at their ordination service.  We are all supposed to answer “yes.”  And we do.  I visit house to house first of all, because I took a vow to. (The other vows are worth looking at, too.  Again, later.)  I visit house to house because IT WORKS, on a bunch of levels.  Sometimes it brings people to church and then to salvation.  Sometimes I get to pray with people! People I would otherwise never meet, or know the burdens on their heart.

I have noticed from the beginning of my ministry that almost no pastor who vowed to visit house to house does so.  I have asked all kinds of people—other pastors, District Superintendents from various conferences, bishops—and I get a basic response.  The questions are “heritage” questions.  We are acting out an old ordination service, but we don’t need to live into the vows.  Or, for the specific question, “Will you visit from house to house,” I have been told most often that it means the people in your church.

Francis Asbury, one of the two original Bishops of the Methodist Church, died in 1816, 200 years ago.  I have been thinking that this would be a great year to read his journals.  I have read Wesley’s Journal, and it was probably the best thing I ever read about what it takes to be a pastor.  Asbury was the bishop who laid out a vision for the Methodists in the new nation.  Well, finding Asbury’s journal has been a little harder.  I found one on Amazon, but it is only volume 2 of a three volume set.  No biggie, I figured I would start there.

As I was packing to head to Illinois, I picked it up to put in my bag and it opened.  I glanced at random and came across this gem from May 24, 1795: “I spent part of the week in visiting from house to house. I feel happy in speaking to all I find, whether parents, children, or servants; I see no other way; the common means will not do; Baxter, Wesley, and our Form of Discipline say, ‘Go into every house;’ I would go farther and say, go into every kitchen and shop—address all, aged and young, on the salvation of their souls.”

So, there you have it.  Asbury, who knew Wesley well, gathered that visiting from house to house really  means going from house to house!  And not just the homes of your own people.  He cites Richard Baxter, probably thinking of his great book on pastoral care “The Reformed Pastor,” and John Wesley and the Methodist book of Discipline.

All that remains for us to decide is if this practice makes any sense today.  What has changed since 1816, and when did it change, so that visiting from house to house should be neglected?  And if it should be neglected, can we drop it from ordination, because it seems in poor taste to start ministry with dishonest answers to questions that don’t matter.

Or… could it be that in a day when fewer and fewer people come to church, and very few know much about what it means to be a Christian, that pastors should rediscover this to get to know the people who aren’t coming to church, and for whom the “common means” (going to church, growing up in a Christian culture, etc) are not working?