{"id":132,"date":"2006-07-13T16:49:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-13T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=132"},"modified":"2013-06-28T17:07:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T21:07:17","slug":"historic-roots-of-systematic-pastoral-visitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=132","title":{"rendered":"Historic Roots of Systematic Pastoral Visitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When describing the need for careful oversight of a congregation people often think of the example of Richard Baxter. Baxter is of course a good example, and I have fairly frequently referred to Baxter <a href=\"http:\/\/search.blogger.com\/?as_q=baxter&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;ui=blg&amp;bl_url=rvanneste.blogspot.com&amp;amp;x=6&amp;y=7\">in posts on this blog<\/a>. However, we must not think Baxter originated the idea of regular, systematic visitation of one&#8217;s congregation.<\/p>\n<p>Theodore Beza, in his Life of Calvin, describes some developments in the pastoral ministry in Geneva in 1550:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It was determined that the ministers should at a certain season of the year, attended by an elder and a deacon, go round all the wards of the city, to instruct the people, and examine every individual briefly as to his faith. This they were to do, not only in sermons &#8230; but also in each house and family. It is scarcely credible how great benefit ensued&#8221;\u009d (trans. Henry Beveridge)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When describing the need for careful oversight of a congregation people often think of the example of Richard Baxter. Baxter is of course a good example, and I have fairly frequently referred to Baxter in posts on this blog. However, we must not think Baxter originated the idea of regular, systematic visitation of one&#8217;s congregation. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=132\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Historic Roots of Systematic Pastoral Visitation&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3750,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/3750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}