Care facility services

I started a conversation in the Steve Pettit thread, but i don’t want to take that thread off topic, so I’m starting a new thread.

In that thread, I made the following comment about my work at a care facility - “I currently help every Sunday afternoon with a church service at a rest home/care facility. I turn on the microphone and set up the overhead projector. We have Lutherans, Baptists, E-free, Methodists, and Assembly of God churches take turns running the service. I initially felt quite conflicted helping other denominations run their services, but fortunately I’ve gotten over that.”

CAWatson responded with “I presently pastor an MBA/MARB church (that is in the process of closing). I was on the rotation for the local nursing home service (one service every 6 weeks or so). I did my last service there last Sunday. They need to hear the gospel from someone, and it might as well be me. “

Using those posts as a starting point, I have a few questions for others on the forum.

1. Does your church participate in a regularly scheduled care facility service? Does the pastor lead it, or someone else in the church? I used to call them “rest home services,” but the full-time chaplain of the local “rest home” told me that they prefer to be called care facilities these days. Before I started my weekly responsibilities three months ago, I had been leading a once every other month service for the past 15 years. I was never able to find a regular piano player to assist me, but fortunately the facility had music CD’s that matched up with their assortment of hymns on overhead projector sheets. There was always a sound room guy to change the CD tracks for me. Now, I am the sound room guy, so I’ve asked my pastor to find someone else to lead the services so I don’t have to try doing both positions at the same time.

2. If you personally run such a service, how do you pick the preaching topics? When I first started out, I was under the assumption that most of the attendees would be unsaved, so i would preach a simple Romans Road type gospel message during each of my turns. I’ve since come to realize that most of the regular participants are believers already and simply can’t leave the facility or do not have rides to their home church. So I’ve added quite a bit more meat to my messages, but they are usually topical in nature. It’s hard to go expositorily through an entire book when you only see the crowd once every other month. I did take at least three sessions going through Psalm 23 in a very detailed fashion.

3. Do you do any follow-up work at the facility? This is one area in which i wish I was able to do more. I work full-time delivering mail, plus overtime, plus an hour commute each way, so I don’t have any extra time to go visit with residents and build relationships. I’m glad I’m now working there on a weekly basis each Sunday, since I’m able to visit with a few of the folks who always arrive early.