Equip Your Congregation to Care.

1. Exhort through preaching

As you are committed to preaching the Bible, look for those points of application that serve as exhortations to love, care for and serve the afflicted in your church. Refer back to the chapter on biblical considerations for assistance. Regardless of where in the Bible you are preaching in a particular week, you will find a sovereign God who is ruling over the afflictions and sufferings of people. You will see God’s glory displayed as his people care for those in need for the sake of the gospel. This is one reason why expositional preaching is the most helpful steady diet for a local church. As you preach through books of the Bible, you are more likely to be confronted with texts that allow this type of instruction. However, there is nothing wrong with making this topic the basis for a short sermon series when appropriate. But regardless of how you teach your congregation about visiting the sick—whether through a short sermon series or through regular application in your expositional sermons—the preaching of the Word of God is that which gives life to the church, and it is where we are able to exhort with authority that which is most important to the entire body. Show the care of the sick and afflicted as a priority by exhorting through public preaching.

2. Pray for the afflicted in public gatherings

I will admit that praying the never-ending prayer list when the church gathers can turn into a meaningless, painful mantra. This is not what I am proposing. I am encouraging you to pick a couple of significant afflictions in your church that you can highlight through public prayer for the purposes of informing and teaching your congregation how we should face these struggles. Praying for these serious situations informs the congregation about what is going on, but it also allows you to teach your congregation how to face these difficulties by the way you pray publicly.

When you pray, pray specific biblical truths. Praise God for his sovereign power over sickness and death. Thank God for the hope we have of physical wholeness and resurrection one day because of Christ. Pray for healing if it be God’s will to heal. Pray for the gospel to be known in the lives of those who are suffering
as Christ is magnified in our weakness. Pray for the medical personnel caring for them, yet recognizing God as the great healer. Then pray that the gospel would be seen in your faithful care, as a local church, of those enduring these afflictions. Seize the public gatherings of the church to pray for these needs, as not only are they wonderful moments for teaching and motivating, but also there is great power in corporate intercession.

3. Inform your people regularly

Willing church members are more likely to serve the sick and afflicted if they know what is going on and where to go. Lack of knowledge can be very discouraging for someone who wants to help but does not know how to gather the appropriate information. Create a system within your local church so that members can be informed and updated regularly as circumstances develop and change. Bulletins and prayer chains have been an effective way to get the word out in the past and can still be useful now. Church-wide email appears to be the trend for the future. Whatever the method, be committed to keeping your people updated, not just on the circumstances to know how to pray better, but also with the information they need to go and physically visit and care for those struggling. Hospital and room numbers; whether they want visitors; how close someone may be to dying; and particular things that church members can go and do for them: these are just a few specific details that are helpful for those who are more detached from the daily grind of pastoral labour. Busy church members can find endless reasons not to bother with caring for the sick. Let us not allow being uninformed to be one of them.

4. Lead by example

We cannot expect our people to be faithful in this task if we are not. The obvious truth of this in our lives does not give us the luxury of dismissing it. We can preach on caring for the sick, we can pray in every public gathering for them, we can give detailed assessments of the daily needs of the afflicted, but if we are not engaged in visiting the sick ourselves and our congregations are not affected by our efforts, we have failed. A soldier is more willing to follow his general into battle than to charge upon his command from a distant post. Fellow pastors, we must not only visit but must also model a burden for the sick and afflicted for our people. We must model a great faith in our sovereign God and a tender fellowship with our Saviour in these moments, knowing that he works all things for his own glory and for the good of his people. Lead faithfully in this way, and your people will follow.

5. Publicly lift up the example of others

A model of care for the sick doesn’t have to come solely from you. Seize key opportunities to praise and lift up lay people in your church who faithfully care for the afflicted and dying. For example, on Wednesday evenings in my church, we have a time of informally sharing what we are thankful for. I will use this time to highlight a faithful brother or sister who has sacrificially cared for a dying member that week and give thanks for his or her effort and faithfulness. As you lift up those who are faithful in visiting the afflicted, God often will use those examples to move others to do the same.

May God use the platform he has given us to urge others to care for the sick, and may he use all our labour for his good purposes and for the glory of his great name.

God bless

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Nlers, stop confusing pastoral care with something else.


Appreciate those who are actually there for you, stop trying to manufacture imaginary linkages outside of reality.