Making Elder Visits Good News Instead Of Bad News

by on February 16, 2026 | Comment

Under the types and shadows—that is, the Old Testament—our Lord instituted three special offices in Christ’s church: Prophet (Deut 18:15–22),  Priest (Lev 8), and King (1 Sam 8).1 Going back at least as far as Thomas Aquinas (d. 1224) the church has recognized that Christ fulfilled these three offices and dispensed them to his church. In our Heidelberg Catechism, the Reformed churches confess that Jesus is called Christ (i.e., “anointed”) because

he is ordained of God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief Prophet and Teacher, who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption; and our only High Priest, who by the one sacrifice of his body, has redeemed us, and ever lives to make intercession for us with the Father; and our eternal King, who governs us by his Word and Spirit and defends and preserves us in the redemption obtained for us.2

In the Reformation we reclaimed the biblical and ancient Christian teaching that Jesus is our prophet (the ministry of the Word serves his Word). He alone is our priest (he alone mediates for us with the Father). He alone is King (he rules everything in his general providence and specially rules his church by the Scriptures).

Nevertheless, we also understand that our Prophet, Priest, and King has established three offices that are roughly parallel to his three offices: minister of Word and sacrament, in which office the prophetic office is carried out through the preaching of the Word and administration of the holy sacraments. The deacons carry out the priestly office by seeing to the practical needs of the people of the congregation.3 The elders carry out the kingly office in the church.

We see this when the Apostle Peter calls the ascended Lord Jesus, “the shepherd and overseer of your souls” (1 Pet 2:25).4 He is the chief elder, if you will. The fundamental vocation of the ruling elder is supervision. To the degree the ruling elder participates in the ministry of the episkopos (ἐπίσκοπος) he is an “overseer.”5

The Ruling Elder As Family Visitor

In Reformed congregations, among the several duties of the ruling elder they are to “engage in family visiting.”6 This aspect of the ruling elder’s office can be traced to article 23 of the Church Order of the Synod of Dort (1619) which required elders “to conduct family visiting for the edification of the congregation insofar as this can be done before and after the Lord’s Supper, especially to comfort the members of the congregation, to teach, and also to exhort others to profess the Christian religion.”7

In commenting on this aspect of article 23 Idzerd Van Dellen and Martin Monsma distinguished four aspects of the work of ruling elders, and visitation touches the third and fourth aspects.8 They remind us that before the Reformation Roman Catholic priests heard “auricular and sacramental confession, i.e., the acknowledgment of sin to a priest in order to obtain forgiveness through him.”9 The Reformed churches rightly rejected this practice (though it is perfectly appropriate for pastors to hear confessions of sin, to counsel members, and to offer believers the assurance of pardon), and in its place they substituted “personal supervision by the overseer” and “personal consultation” by ruling elders “in order to instruct, correct, and comfort each one according to his individual need.”10 They were to carry out this ministry “by periodic visits on the part of the officer-bearers at the homes of the parishioners.”11

Van Dellen and Monsma give two reasons why the Synod of Dort connected elders visits with the Lord’s Supper. The first was to prevent mere formalism—that is, to make sure that those who were coming to the Lord’s Table were doing so sincerely and in faith. The second reason was to address issues of sin in connection to the Supper. This aspect of the elder visits “took the place of the Roman confession before the priest.”12 The Wezel Convention (1568) even stipulated that elders should visit the homes of their members weekly.13 Van Dellen and Monsma noted, “Article 23 stipulates under this point ‘in order particularly to comfort and instruct the members.'”14 They observed that Wezel exhorted elders to see to the spiritual well-being of their members by instructing them regarding godly conduct, faithful instruction of their households regarding family prayers, and correction of the members regarding sin.15

Putting The Good News First

The order of “comfort and instruct” is significant. It suggests an order than is often forgotten during elder visits. Usually, the first topic of discussion in an elder visit is family and personal prayer. In other words, most of the time, in home visits, elders often skip comfort in favor of exhortation and instruction about prayer and devotions. Doubtless this is so because this is what was modeled to them. It may well be that this pattern goes back to the late sixteenth century. There were certain reasons for this emphasis in elder visits.

In the context of the state churches in the Netherlands, the British Isles, and across Europe, nominalism was a major problem. Typically, everyone born in a parish was a member of their parish church by law. In other words, these were not free churches as we experience them in the USA. In our setting, a member of the neighborhood is not automatically a member of the church. Our congregations are voluntary associations. They are not established by the state, and the coercive power of the state has no authority regarding membership and doctrine in the church. The situation in the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was rather different from ours in that regard. In our congregations, adults are admitted to membership on a credible profession of faith and sincere affirmation of the faith as confessed in our churches. We baptize hitherto unbaptized believers and their children. Our people are not members of the church by virtue of their neighborhood but by profession. Were it the case that our pews were full of unbelievers, a situation I do not believe to be the case, it would be because our consistories have failed to do their duty to discipline those who have shown themselves to be in need of it and not because ours are state-established churches full of nominal members. If, however, elders are visiting a faithful member of the church, that member should be regarded as such and not with suspicion.

Elders certainly should admonish and instruct church members about these important topics, especially where there is evidence of carelessness. In this regard, however, I wish elders would address attendance to the means of grace (i.e., Lord’s Day worship) before they address family prayers and personal devotions. One reason for this order is that attendance to the means of grace is obvious and objective. Either a member is present or he is not. The second reason is that according to our catechism, the preaching of the gospel and discipline are the keys of the kingdom.16 The first signal of spiritual illness in a home is not devotions but absence from the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. The third reason is that devotions are subjective. What counts as acceptable devotions? How long must they be? Elders should tread carefully here. A simple question such as, “do you pray” is sufficient. The issue is whether the member is holding the faith with a good conscience (1 Tim 1:19).

Elders should exhort and admonish but not before they have done the most important thing: bringing comfort. This aspect of the elder visit should come first. It should be the basis of everything that follows. In short what I am asking of elders is to bring a word of good news to their sheep before they correct and admonish.

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches the first thing he did was to remind them of the good news and of the grace that we have received in Christ Jesus. Only then did he move on to correct their sins. Dear elder, have you prepared good news for Christ’s sheep whom you are visiting? Are you prepared to point them to Christ before you correct their faults?

Elder visits can too often be like a home visit from a dentist. We all dread the dentist because we know that he is a bearer of bad news: we have not brushed our teeth enough. We have not flossed enough. It has been too long between cleanings. An elder visit should  be more like a visit from the Amazon driver with the good news that Amazon has decided to give your house a free lifetime Prime membership with free delivery. That would good news, but the good news is that Jesus loves sinners. That he loves the sinners whom you are helping to shepherd is the best news ever, and the sheep you are visiting very much needs to hear that good news from you. They already know that they have failed, that they do not read their Bible often enough, that they do not pray as they ought, and browbeating them will not make them do better. You can, however, lead them gently and willingly to the sweet waters of family and personal communion with Christ, which is the goal, by starting with the wonderful good news of God’s love, Christ’s free favor, and the free gift of new life, true faith, justification, and salvation in Christ alone.

notes

  1. On this approach to offices in the church see Derke P. Bergmsa, “Prophets, Priests, and Kings: Biblical Offices,” in John H. Armstrong, ed. The Compromised Church: The Present Evangelical Crisis (Crossway Books, 1998), 117–32.
  2. For more on Heidelberg 31 see R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Commentary (Lexham Press, 2025), 201–18.
  3. Luke 10:32 mentions the Levite who passed by the man who was injured. He does so, in part, because it was one the priest’s responsibilities to take care of the injured. This perhaps is reflected in Acts 6:7, where Luke records that, upon the institution of the office of deacon, “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” This is because, as Bergsma has observed, the “diaconal office provides for a ministry of mercy as deacons give priestly attention to mobilizing the church’s sacrificial offerings for the purposes of a compassionate ministry to the sick and needy.” Bergsma, “Prophets, Priests, and Kings,” 128.
  4. My translation. “τὸν ποιμένα καὶ ἐπίσκοπον τῶν ψυχῶν ὑμῶν” (UBS5). It is most significant that the Apostle Peter, whom Rome calls “pope,” himself calls Jesus and not himself the episkopos (overseer) and shepherd. It is also notable that the Apostle Peter does not refer to himself as pope, which we might expect had he believed that he occupied such an office. Of course, no Roman bishop dared appropriate that title until the early fourth century.
  5. Phil 1:1, 1 Tim 3:1; Titus 1:7.
  6. From article 14 of the Church Order of the United Reformed Churches in North America, 10th edition, ratified 2024.
  7. Art. 24 Church Order of the Synod of Dort in Richard R. DeRidder, ed., “The Church Orders of the Sixteenth Century Reformed Churches of the Netherlands Together with Their Social, Political, and Ecclesiastical Context,” Trans. Richard R. DeRidder with the assistance of Peter H. Jonker and Rev. Leonard Verduin (Calvin Theological Seminary, 1987), 546–57. Translated from C. Hoijer, Oude Kerkordeningen der Nederlandsche Gemeente (1563–1638) (Zalt-Bommel: Joh. Noman en Zoon, nd.).
  8. Idzerd Van Dellen and Martin Monsma, The Church Order Commentary: A Brief Explanation of the Church Order of the Christian Reformed Church, 3rd ed. (Zondervan Publishing House, 1954; repr. Reformed Free Publishing), 158–62.
  9. Van Dellen and Monsma, 158.
  10. Van Dellen and Monsma, 159.
  11. Van Dellen and Monsma, 159.
  12. Van Dellen and Monsma, 159.
  13. Van Dellen and Monsma, 160.
  14. Van Dellen and Monsma, 160. Emphasis added.
  15. Van Dellen and Monsma, 160–61.
  16. Heidelberg Catechism 65, 82, 83.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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  • R. Scott Clark
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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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