Making house calls

There was a time when it was customary for doctors to make house calls. For a number of understandable reasons, few do now. N0t just doctors. Nowadays people don't make house calls on each other either.

In the 1930s, when I was still a child, my mother would sometimes take me calling on her friends. We lived in Chinatown so everybody was within walking distance. We never called ahead because in those days few people had phones. We just showed up. We never went empty handed; we always brought a small gift of fruit or perhaps a package of cookies.

Sometimes we caught people busy doing something like washing their hair or cleaning house. Whatever it was that they were doing, they always stopped to welcome us and give us a cup of tea. They never gave the impression that we were bothering them.

It was still like this in the 1950s when I started as a Chinatown pastor in the 1950s. We made pastoral calls just by showing up. When we moved into the 60s, things began to change. Families were moving out of Chinatown so they were farther away. Often both parents work so you cannot go calling during the day. In the evening, they are busy preparing their meals and doing their laundry, watching their favorite program on TV, getting the children ready for bed. If you do come to make a call, it is expected that you call first. And when you do call, you sometimes get the impression that you are bothering them. So some of us who pastor churches in urban settings stopped making routine pastoral calls all together.

The kind of calling we were able to do in the 1930s is not going to come back. In our present context, we have to find new ways to stay connected, nurture our relationships, show hospitality.