Home Visitation: How Well Does It Work?
Leadership talks to those on the receiving end of three different church visitation programs.
Marshall Shelley
April 1, 1984
What do they really think-those people we call on? Do they associate church visitation teams with the assorted cultists who go door knocking and pamphlet peddling? How many people are glad to see us, and how many feel we're invading their privacy?
They're normally civil, perhaps even polite-but pastors and lay volunteers wonder, What do they say after we've left? And more important, What effect, if any, did this visit have?
To find out, LEADERSHIP surveyed nearly seven hundred people who had been contacted in the past year by the calling programs of three diverse congregations: Galilee Baptist Church in Denver, Colorado; Bismarck Reformed Church in Bismarck, North Dakota; and Big Valley Grace Community Church in Modesto, California.
Each of these churches has weekly visitation based on the Evangelism Explosion method. The program, which trains lay people to give a brief, systematic presentation of the gospel, is used by many churches, including these three, to follow up on first-time visitors to their worship services.
These were not "cold contacts"-homes picked out of the phone book or off a city map. These were people who had shown some interest in the church, usually by attending a Sunday morning service and signing a visitor form.
In order to get candid reactions and the greatest number of responses, the surveys were short-five questions-and anonymous, though people were given the option of including name and phone number if they were willing to talk further. Thirty percent included their names.
In order to assess the effect over time, separate surveys were sent to those visited from September 1982 through August 1983 and those contacted since September 1983.
Because of the strong response (from one group an amazing 74 percent ...
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