Best Practices for Hospital & Shut-In Visitation

Every good pastor and church will find themselves frequently visiting people in the hospital.  At my church, we visit people who are in the hospital or shut-in every single day. Every church sets up their visitation ministry a bit differently.  I explain how we set church’s visitation ministry here: How to Organize a Church Visitation Ministry. But, what do those individual visits look like?  I recently gave our staff some best practices:

  1. Pray before you arrive.  You are representing Jesus, ask how He wants to use you.
  2. Sanitize your hands.  Observe signs regarding masks and other contact precautions when entering a room. If you have been sick talk with the XP about whether you should actually visit.
  3. Turn off your cell phone or set it to silent.
  4. Have a plan.  Know what verses you are going to read.  Always have anointing oil.  When visiting shut-ins always take communion. 
  5. Introduce yourself.  If you don’t know the person, be sure to identify yourself and the fact you are from Calvary.  If the door is shut when you arrive, knock before entering. 
  6. Complete the visit, but don’t obstruct the flow.  Let the hospital staff do their job, at the same time make sure you do yours, even if you have to be assertive.
  7. Keep it short.  Being a patient can be exhausting.  Keep your hospital visits to about 10-15 minutes.  For shut-ins, a lot depends on the situation, but 30 minutes is a good rule of thumb.
  8. Don’t rush out the door, or even seem rushed.  Take the time to sit down, always in a chair and never on the bed.  Take your coat off and don’t make it seem like you are stopping by just to do a job.  If you sense you should stay, then stay.  Even if that means you are sitting quietly with the person, not even talking.
  9. Be sensitive, but not timid.  Ask questions about what is going on in their life, but if you sense they are being private don’t press.
  10. Pray.  Always pray for the person you are visiting.  Ask permission, but always offer to anoint with oil.
  11. Remember the family.  They often require pastoral care too.  A great practice is to call the family after visiting with their loved one.
  12. Send your report.  You should email a report of your visits to *******@*********.***. 

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

775 thoughts on “Best Practices for Hospital & Shut-In Visitation

  1. What’s up to every one, the contents existing at this web page are actually amazing for people knowledge, well, keep up the nice work fellows.

  2. My brother suggested I might like this website. He was totally right.
    This post truly made my day. You can not imagine just how much time I
    had spent for this information! Thanks!

  3. I’m really impressed together with your writing abilities as
    smartly as with the format for your weblog.
    Is that this a paid topic or did you modify it yourself?

    Anyway stay up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare
    to look a nice blog like this one these days..

  4. I just couldn’t leave your web site prior to
    suggesting that I extremely loved the usual info a person provide in your guests?
    Is gonna be back incessantly to check out new posts

  5. Thanks for another informative website. Where
    else may just I get that type of information written in such an ideal method?

    I have a challenge that I’m simply now running on, and I’ve been on the look out for such info.

  6. My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different website and
    thought I might as well check things out. I like what I see so now i’m following
    you. Look forward to finding out about your web page again.

  7. Aw, this was an extremely nice post. Taking the
    time and actual effort to make a good article… but what can I
    say… I hesitate a lot and never manage to get nearly anything done.

  8. This is valuable stuff.In my opinion, if all website owners and bloggers developed their content they way you have, the internet will be a lot more useful than ever before.

  9. Have you ever considered about including a little
    bit more than just your articles? I mean, what
    you say is valuable and all. However imagine if you
    added some great pictures or videos to give your posts more,
    “pop”! Your content is excellent but with images and video clips, this site
    could undeniably be one of the best in its niche. Good blog!

  10. Just desire to say your article is as amazing.
    The clearness to your put up is simply great and that i could think you’re an expert in this subject.
    Well together with your permission allow me to grasp your RSS feed to keep updated with coming near near post.
    Thank you a million and please keep up the enjoyable work.

  11. I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own blog and was
    curious what all is required to get set up? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
    I’m not very internet smart so I’m not 100% sure. Any recommendations or advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks

  12. Howdy! Someone in my Myspace group shared this site with us so I
    came to give it a look. I’m definitely enjoying the information. I’m
    book-marking and will be tweeting this to my
    followers! Exceptional blog and superb design and
    style.

  13. I was recommended this website by my cousin. I’m not sure whether
    this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my difficulty.
    You are incredible! Thanks!

  14. Good post. I study something more difficult on different blogs everyday. It’s going to always be stimulating to learn content material from other writers and observe a little bit one thing from their store. I’d prefer to use some with the content material on my blog whether you don’t mind. Natually I’ll give you a link in your web blog. Thanks for sharing.

  15. The quality of the content in this article is matched by the quality of the writing itself, both work together to create a reading experience that is genuinely informative and enjoyable.

  16. Your style is so unique in comparison to other folks I have read stuff from. Many thanks for posting when you have the opportunity, Guess I will just book mark this web site.

  17. Unquestionably believe that that you stated.
    Your favourite justification seemed to be
    at the web the simplest thing to keep in mind of.
    I say to you, I certainly get irked whilst other people think
    about worries that they just don’t know about.

    You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest
    as well as defined out the entire thing with no need side-effects , folks can take a signal.
    Will probably be back to get more. Thank you

  18. 与传统导航站不同,它聚焦于Web3、AI、加密这三个专业性较强的领域,收录的工具链接经过一定筛选。但与传统导航站相同的是,它依然只是一个“路牌”,而不是“目的地”。走到门口之后,门里面的事它管不着。