Gospel in the Hospital

Since my boys are studying the War Between the States I have read a number of books on the subject this past Fall to supplement our discussions. I came across a book published in 1957 by Broadman Press titled, Chaplains in Gray, written by Charles Pitts. It was a fascinating look at the work of pastors and chaplains in the war.

In one place Pitts quoted at length from A Letter to the Chaplains in the Army by James O. Andrew, a Methodist Episcopal bishop from Georgia. This letter contains much good advice from an aged minister. The following excerpt is a good exhortation for all of us on the importance of ministering in times of sickness and death.

It may be that the circumstances which surround you may offer but few facilities for public preaching, but remember that the pulpit is not the only place where the faithful pastor will preach—in private, by the wayside, in the tent, in the hospitals by the bedside of the sick or wounded soldier; there especially is your place.

Be much with the sick, wounded, and dying—there, while life is ebbing out, when the past is painfully remembered, and the future looms up gloomily before the vision of the dying patriot, when he thinks of home and loved ones there, and feels that his earthly mission is almost ended, then preach Jesus to him, talk to him of the cross and pardon, and of heaven, and kneel beside him, and in the language of pleading, earnest faith, commend his departing spirit to the God who made him, and the exalted Redeemer who died for him, rose again, and ever liveth to intercede for him, and then, when the vital spark is extinct, give him Christian burial. (50-51)

Visit the Sick

Visit the Sick: Ministering God's Grace in Times of Illness, by Brian Croft
(Day One Publications, 2008), pb., 92 pp.

I was very pleased recently to receive a copy of this book and to see that it was now available. It was my privilege to read a pre-publication copy of it and to write a commendation for the book. Here is my blurb found in the book:

“Visit the Sick is an excellent and much-needed resource today when the actual practice of ‘shepherding souls’ is so often neglected. Many younger pastors (and not so young ones as well) have never received the sort of very practical guidance which Brian Croft gives in this book. This book has the potential to be a great blessing to pastors and those they shepherd. It will now be a recommended text in my Pastoral Ministries class and I heartily commend it to others.”

Brian Croft is pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville, where former students of mine and former members of our church are members and serve. Brian is a faithful pastor who seeks to oversee souls, and he has particular experience in this realm of visiting the sick (as Mark Dever discusses in the foreword).

Visiting the sick used to be one of the top things thought of in pastoral ministry but today it is often overlooked or shuffled off to others as much as possible. This ought not be the case. Even as we hold up the importance of preaching and teaching, we may not neglect shepherding such as in this area. This is not what was done by those who went before us.

I commend this book to all pastors. Brian Croft has done us a great service.