{"id":6435,"date":"2021-04-26T17:25:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T17:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/?p=6435"},"modified":"2021-05-11T12:24:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T12:24:45","slug":"the-role-of-the-homebound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/2021\/04\/26\/the-role-of-the-homebound\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of the Homebound"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I had short conversations yesterday regarding homebound or shut-in members of congregations. An issue that has not been in the forefront of my work since I participated in writing &#8220;Heims\u00f3knar\u00fej\u00f3nusta kirkjunnar &#8211; Fr\u00e6\u00f0sluefni&#8221; with Ragnheidur Sverrisdottir and Gudrun Eggertsdottir, either 2002 or 2003. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the conversations yesterday, I felt I was kind of defensive and I didn&#8217;t claim fully my experience and understanding. As I started to think more about the issue of homebound or shut-in members of congregations this morning, I got stuck thinking about how congregations can extend and celebrate the experience and knowledge that our shut-ins have and create a meaningful participation for the homebound and the gathered congregation. How can we look at our shut-ins as an asset to our current congregational life instead of a task that needs to be taken care of.  I am throwing out some initial unorganised thoughts that could serve as a starting point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The classical way is to ask homebound members to help us pray, and surely many do.<\/li><li>The monthly visit from the pastor is often an important church ministry.<ul><li><em>In larger congregation it might be a visit from a Stephen Ministry Team.<\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Some churches ask homebound members to write cards.<\/li><li>It is important to bring communion to those that are unable to attend.<\/li><li>Other churches have Sunday school kids create cards for the homebound as part of Sunday School Curriculum. <\/li><li>If there is a decent Children&#8217;s choir, they might go for a visit to the homebound and sing a song. Adult choirs could do that as well. <\/li><li>I wonder if, in a time of digitalised worship experiences, there are new opportunities. <ul><li>What if our homebound would read one or more texts in the Sunday Worship? <\/li><\/ul><ul><li>What if we would create a regular place for a testimony in our worship from our wise elders.<\/li><li>We could also offer up a glimpse of the church&#8217;s history, thrown up on a screen for all to see.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><em>The operating question in my mind is:<\/em> How can we help our homebound to participate in a meaningful way, not only for them but the whole congregation, without regard to their ability to be there in person?<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had short conversations yesterday regarding homebound or shut-in members of congregations. An issue that has not been in the forefront of my work since I participated in writing &#8220;Heims\u00f3knar\u00fej\u00f3nusta kirkjunnar &#8211; Fr\u00e6\u00f0sluefni&#8221; with Ragnheidur Sverrisdottir and Gudrun Eggertsdottir, either 2002 or 2003. During the conversations yesterday, I felt I was kind of defensive and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/2021\/04\/26\/the-role-of-the-homebound\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Role of the Homebound<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,195,197,196],"class_list":["post-6435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","tag-church","tag-homebound","tag-purpose","tag-shut-ins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}