Parish Visiting

The Church Warden, new and enthusiastic felt her confidence drain away as her request for volunteers met a sea of blank faces. But over coffee a chance conversation and a personal request found a couple of volunteer, and some suggestions of other people to ask. A personal request is always the most effective way of getting the job done.

What is Parish Visiting? Put simply the elements of the communication strategy, the brochure, the letter and the response forms are personally delivered to church members by a visiting team from the church. The purpose is to enable a one to one conversation to take place. Giving in Grace is an invitation to respond to the grace of God; the more personal that invitation the more effective it will be. A programme of parish visiting, sensitively and carefully prepared is very effective. Indeed, personal visiting forms part of Giving in Grace during consultations around the case statement and in a follow up strategy.

1. Be confident about the value of parish visiting. It may seem daunting but the potential is enormous. For more on the value of parish visiting see “Why Visiting Matters”.
2. Be clear what is meant by parish visiting. Parish visiting is a conversation with church members about the aims and purpose of Giving in Grace. Parish visiting is not cold visiting to recruit new members but visits made to existing members of the church.Read one church's story
3. Be careful to distinguish Parish visiting from Follow up. Parish visiting must be carefully distinguished from Follow up Visiting that takes place after the programme in response to requests for additional information in the response forms. See Distinguishing Parish and Follow up Visiting
4. Be strategic and realistic about visiting. How much visiting can you or do you want to achieve? It might be possible to visit the whole congregation of a smaller church but it is unrealistic with a large congregation or a small number of suitable parish visitors. For more advice see Planning the Visiting Programme
5. Be careful to offer training to parish visitors. A well prepared parish visiting training session will go a long way to dispelling any anxieties that parish visitors might have.
6. Be prayerful in commissioning visitors. Consider using a short liturgy to commission visitors as part of public worship. It values the parish visitor and their task as part of the spirituality of money and underlines the significance of the visiting to the congregation.