Honor that request, but don’t stay longer than thirty minutes. At other times, these folks may be more comfortable and indicate they’d like you to stay longer.
In extreme cases, their pain may be so intense that all you should do is read a few verses and pray. Sometimes five minutes is all that sick people can handle. When you can’t be present for a day, call by phone and talk with them for a few minutes.Ī twenty-minute visit in person is usually sufficient. Their need for scriptural guidance and earnest prayer is great. People who are dying cannot be visited too often.
1 Visiting the Dying ⤒ □ Here are Some Suggestions for Visiting the Dying. And it is rewarding because the dying and the mourning are open at this time about their deepest feelings and hungry to receive guidance from Scripture. It is sobering because we stand by our parishioners as they cross the threshold of time into eternity.
It is challenging because we need great wisdom to know how to respond to people’s needs scripturally, truthfully, and compassionately. Pastoring the dying and the mourning is challenging, sobering, and rewarding. People need hope, support, and love to get through these crises. The initial shock of a terminal illness or death cries out for pastoral help in working through grief biblically, making difficult decisions, planning funeral services, repairing brokenness, and addressing guilt. Furthermore, dying and mourning saints have a claim on our compassion for Christ’s sake (Matthew 25:40 see also John 11:33-36).ĭeath is so final, so irreversible, that the dying and the mourning need pastoral care perhaps more at this time than at any other in life. Caring for those who suffer promotes the unity of the body of Christ and fosters the communion of saints. Paul teaches us that when one member of Christ’s body suffers, “all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Likewise, caring for the dying and the mourning is the pastor’s loving duty. Several geese stayed with the injured bird in dutiful care for their wounded friend. Every morning, in recent weeks, my wife and I walked past an injured Canada goose, whose feathers stuck out in several directions.