Historic Examination - Instruction and Visitation

Questions: Will you diligently instruct the children in every place? Will you visit from house to house?
Answer: Yes

   These two questions tend to give me pause, even though on the surface they are quite simple. Mostly because I don't think John Wesley could anticipate how they have been morphed over the years to look and mean something completely different from his intention.
   When we instruct the children in every place we are teaching them about the faith. When children haven't grown up in a Christian home, they need adults to teach them about the love of Jesus. There are some beautiful ways that churches do this today - Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Children's Messages, Children's Church. Here we started a story time with the pastor on the parsonage porch one day a week. But how this can be misinterpreted is to say that it is only the children who need instruction, which simply isn't true. Children need a special type of instruction, but that does not preclude adults of any age and any stage of their faith journey from needing instruction as well. Faith is a lifelong process and we are never done.
   Visitation from house to house used to act as that form of instruction for households, hence the imploring to visit from house to house. But today we have mis-interpreted this as well. At my last appointment there were over 100 households of folks who were some sort of regular-esque attenders. I had a gentleman who wanted me to visit all of these households once every 6 months at the least, once a quarter if possible. It wasn't possible. If the pastor only visited from house to house they would not be able to do the rest of their job let alone hold up the rest of the historic questions being discussed.
   Instruction and visitation is not the job of the pastor alone - we need partners in the congregation who uphold these vital ministries. We are better together as ministers for Christ.