Handle with Care

SIDE BY SIDE

Handle with Care

Pastors of Visitation Roger Burgess and Bruce Main talk about their philosophies

ROGER BURGESS

BRUCE MAIN

Is your visitation and care targeted to a specific group at College Church?

The Pastor of Visitation primarily serves and ministers to our senior congregants.

What is your role as pastor of visitation, and how do you define that term?

PRIORITY OF PERSON-CENTERED CARE When we as burden-bearers listen to and care for others in their burdens, it may become evident that what we call a burden may not necessarily be what they call a burden. Who can truly determine whether a burden that someone else is experiencing is overwhelming or miniscule, is major or minor? If the degree of the burden, major or minor, can only be defined by the one experiencing it, then the burden-bearer must become as the burdensufferer, viewing their pain and hardship through their eyes, not our own.

PRIORITY OF IN-PERSON PRESENCE While visitation can ably be done through phone and technological devices, these are not substitutes for offering and providing inperson presence as much as possible.

PERSONAL AND MISSIONAL PERSPECTIVE To fit in with the full-time pastoral staff members where, when and how needed, and thus to supplement and aid them as effectively as possible, primarily in relationship to our church’s senior congregants.

To journey with and minister to our church’s senior congregants, as well as their families, through the maze of the senior’s latter years of earthly life.

What’s the best advice you received in how to care well for people?

1. Listen first and listen well

2. Be present in both heart and mind

3. If the one to whom we are caring is experiencing hardship, flee assuming we know the cause of their hardship