Below is information about our outline and forms for forming a small-group in your church to address the visitation needs of your congregation. These are the tools for a Pastor or leader within a local congregation to use in developing a “Visitation Committee.” Those who would be “recipients” of the ministry of the group would include shut-ins, hospitalized individuals, and long-term care facility residents.
Such a program within the church helps to insure that all members and friends of the congregation who should receive phone calls, visits and postcards will get them from people who care enough to do it. This type of activity in a local congregation greatly increases the effectiveness of the ministry and outreach of the church. Such a program in the local church also helps the congregation remember nursing home ministry opportunities.
The following are the Instructions for using the outline and forms in the “.PDF” after you download and print it (see below).
Visitation Committee – Leaders Worksheet
Study the outline in the “.PDF” download below, filling in your ideas where applicable. Then, follow the outline in the first meeting with the members of the group, getting their input and adjusting where necessary.
Use the forms for documenting and organizing your activities:
Privacy Note: Please be careful to respect the privacy of all the individuals you visit. Never visit in a private home or a care facility or a hospital without the individual’s expressed consent. Be careful to maintain their privacy in filling out these forms and sharing them with others. Also, you must familiarize yourself with and observe all the privacy rules of the institutions in which you minister.
Regular Visitation Recipient
Use this form to build a notebook of individuals who will receive phone calls, personal visits, or postcards from members of the committee. This will keep all the necessary contact information in one place.
Visitation Report Slip
The committee leader will fill out this slip for each one who is to receive a visit, etc., and give them to the appropriate committee members. They are to be completed by the committee members and returned at the next meeting of the committee to report their activities to the group
Individual Visitation Record
Blanks of these forms are to be placed behind each of the informational “Regular Visitation Recipient” forms in the notebook. The leader will fill these out using the “Visitation Report Slips” handed in by committee members. From this information, the committee leader can make detailed reports to the Pastor and leadership of the church on who is visiting, who they are visiting, and how often.