It's at this time of year that customarily an announcement is made from the pul­pit to the effect that church visitation is scheduled for such and such a night. I'd like in this article to explain why the congregation is informed of the upcom­ing visitation. To do that successfully, we need to consider why church visita­tion is carried out in the first place.

As to the reasons why church visitation is carried out in Reformed churches over the world, I refer to a couple of passages from Scripture. Sometime after their first mis­sionary journey was completed, the apostle Paul said to Barnabas:

Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.Acts 15:36

This matter of "seeing how they are doing" refers to an effort to find out how things are with them regarding the faith.¹ Here the apostle was not minding somebody else's per­sonal affairs; he rather knew that he had a obligation here to be his brothers' keeper. Here² Paul puts into practice the principle of 1 Cor 12. According to that chapter, each member of Christ has something to offer to the body. Indeed, each member needs the body. Hence the confession of Art 28 of the Belgic Confession:

...all and everyone are obliged to join (the church) and unite with it, maintaining the unity of the Church.., and serve the edifi­cation of the brothers and sisters...

This principle, true as it is regarding individ­ual believers, is equally true of churches; none may be "content to be by himself". So Paul took it upon himself to visit the churches to see how they were doing. Over the centuries the churches have sought to apply this same principle by an annual church visitation. Nearly four centuries ago, the Synod of Dort (1618/19) laid it out in Art 44 of the Church Order:

The synod shall appoint some of the most experienced and capable ministers to visit the churches ... It shall be the task of these visitors to inquire whether all things are regulated and done in full harmony with the Word of God, whether the office-bear­ers fulfil the duties of their office faithfully as they have promised, and whether the Church Order is being observed and main­tained in every respect, in order that they may in good time fraternally admonish those who are found negligent in anything, and that by their good counsel and advice all things may be directed towards the edification and preservation of Christ's church. They shall submit written reports of their visits to synod...³

We can, then, circumscribe the purpose of church visitation as follows: in church visita­tion, the appointed visitors seek to find out how Christ's various congregations are doing.

The question that next comes to mind is this: how should the church visitors find out how a particular church is doing? In time past, it has happened that the church visitors met with the entire congregation to discuss the weal and woe of the congregation. When it came to ques­tions about the work of the officebearers, the church visitors dismissed the officebearers in order to give the congregation unhindered op­portunity to say what they would about the way in which the brothers were carrying out their office.⁴ This particular method of carrying out church visitation, however, did not meet with favour in the churches. This was not due to unwillingness on the part of officebearers to have the congregation say what they would about them (officebearers, being the sinful men that they are, need feedback from the sheep over which the Lord has set them); the reason for the disfavour regarding this method was rather due to the recognition that Jesus Christ has given authority in the church not to church visitors nor to the congregation, but only to the consistory. So it will never do for church visi­tors to set themselves as judges over the con­sistory. When church visitors come, then, they meet with the consistory, and in the consistory they meet with the congregation.

In the fact that church visitors met with the congregation itself, there is, however, a good element which may not be lost. It has pleased the Lord to place all congregation members in the office of all believers (LD 12). As such, each congregation member has the duty to see to it that their officebearers carry out their office as Christ commands. Here is the reason why the church visitation is an­nounced to the congregation before the church visitors come: the congregation is given the opportunity to speak with the visi­tors about the failures and sins of the office­bearers in carrying out their office.⁵ So it is that when the church visitors meet with the consistory, one of the first questions they ask is this:

Where the purpose, place and time of the meeting announced to the congrega­tion...?

And

Has any member of the congregation brought any complaint to the Consistory regarding Church life in general since the previous visitation? If so, could they be solved?

What it all comes do to is this: the church visitation involves the congregation. But that's no surprise, if only because all of church life revolves around, and hence in­volves, the congregation itself.