The Elders and Family Visitation

When we take up the matter of the elders' work of family visitation, we are dealing with a Reformed tradition. Family visitation is a practice not found in other branches of the church. The venerable practical theologian J. J. Van Oosterzee points this out when he writes, "… it is sufficiently evident that house to house visitation may be looked upon as a peculiar fruit of the Reformed soil."1 Though it makes an interesting study in itself we do not intend to consider the history of family...