Remembrances From an Elder

The following are remembrances of being an elder. I started at age 35 and a large responsibility was family visits. The visits were announced in the bulletin two weeks in advance. The visits were done in the afternoon and evening; three families each time.

The Pastor and I visit an elderly couple and he comes to the door. We did not visit; his reason was poor preaching and poor sermons. An elder and I visited an immigrant, crouch of a gentleman. We knocked on the door, he opened it to see who was there; my fellow elder was a recent immigrant also. You admire the Queen of Holland? I had to leave, no work for me there. No family visit. We arrived at a home where we assumed all was well, but we soon had an ear full of complaints about the elders and deacons; how the church was failing. We kindly suggested that if he felt so negative, he could move to the CRC down the street. His comeback was now you want to kick me out.

On a lighter note, a pastor and an elder made a visit, the last one on the schedule. Coffee and cake were served and the pastor and elder could see the kitchen counter and a mouse nibbling on a cake. The hostess asks if you would you like more cake, the elder said, “No, but I am sure pastor would.”

I made a visit to a widow lady that was a housekeeper for a gentleman who lived in a mobile home. She invited us in and her first remark was there is a bedroom on each end that is where each of us sleeps.

As VP of the council, it was my responsibility to assign elder teams to visit the church families that had not been visited by elders. My team did so and the pastor was grateful that we included his family for visits.

I was the lead elder on a discipline case where the husband was severely abusing his wife. In our discussion, we strongly urged him to refrain from doing so. The matter came to my father-in-law. He was chastising me for the work I was doing; the man was a son of dad’s friend. My sister-in-law told dad that I was doing the work that the church required.