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I got the call at home at about 3:10 am Thanksgiving morning. I'm on-call for 24 hours. When on-call, we only go in if a patient has died. Our immediate concern in such cases, is the patient's family.Arriving at the hospital 25 minutes later, I found the 42-year-old deceased patient's wife in the room alone with him. He had come in Wednesday evening with a 101 temperature and pain in his left leg. Other than that, he had not been sick - worked for the Atlanta Falcons. His death was a total shock to his wife and to the doctors too. They are not sure, but think he may have developed a blood clot in his leg. The clot possibly became dislodged and went into a lung - causing severe problems with breathing and overtaxing his heart. As I gently pulled open the two sliding doors to his ICU area, his wife was in a far corner literally shaking with grief. His death was totally unexpected. Their two sons, ages 7 and 12 were at home with their grandfather. They did not know anything about their dad passing away. She wanted advice on how to tell a child that their Father had died.She and I stood by her husbands bedside as she tried to come to grips with what had just happened. She began to pray and thank the Lord for allowing her to have such a good husband for the past 13 years. She had heard testimonies of how the Holy Spirit had comforted people in times like this, and she was asking Lord, could you please do that for me?She and her husband are members of a Pentecostal fellowship and I asked if her pastor knew what had happened. She didn't have his number with her but gave me the name of the church and asked me to please call him.I Googled the church name and up came a nice website. It's a church with about a hundred people in regular attendance. I called the church number hoping there was an emergency number to reach the pastor - looked under contact us but the only number was the church number.Looking under Church staff, it showed photos of each person and gave some basic info, but no emails or phone numbers. At about 4:15am, I left a voice mail at the church number. Neither the website nor voice mail at church left any number for the pastor. Called information. No number for the pastor. No email address. Checked his organization's state office (he is not COG) listing of church's and pastors - church name and number was there but no number for him. It seemed the pastor had made a great effort to keep people from knowing his personal number.That is understandable to a point, but when faithful members cannot reach their pastor in major emergencies...Do they still have answering services that churches or businesses can hire to take calls? That way, the caller gets a live person to speak with, but the one taking the calls can screen them and only awaken the pastor if it is a major emergency. HOW ACCESSIBLE are you to calls from members during off hours? What method do you use to screen calls, especially at night? Sadly, at that newly widowed church members worst day of her life, I had to share that we were unable to reach her pastor.Doyl

I give out cards with my contact information.I give out cards that stick to the fridge with said information.My contact info is printed in the Church bulletin every Sunday Charles A. HutchinsSenior Pastor SPWCCongregational Church of Godwww.spwc.church

Doyle,Disconnection is now the norm for the pastor/attendee relationship these days. Those who attend church want to be less accessible and accountable as to giving contact info and making commitments like membership. Many pastors have returned the favor by keep themselves at arms length by reducing their accessibility. While the pastor of a large church has staff who can be contacted 24/7, the smaller church pastor (who is trying to emulate the mega-model pastor) does not have those resources. The small church pastor is the church resource in times of need. So either you're open to contact, or you really need to grow your church to get people to handle these situations. Someone said, if you don't like the smell of sheep, you don't want to be a shepherd.

I have noticed what Mat commented is true in our area. A distance has been built. Funny the churches are about the same size or less for 30 years and the pastor is less assess able. AS always, good points and bad points, but in the case of the OP, the info should have been left with the patient/family in case! BEcause more folks die in the hospital than anywhere else, and as in that case, death is NOT expected MANY times.As a member I like to feel that my pastor is concerned about my family. For me I? I don't worry about it. Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/

Did this just happen this morning, Doyle? I can't even imagine.. The World As I See Ithttp://worldjeffreysees.blogspot.com/Revuriah's Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Richard/1226257444Jeffrey David Richard's Myspace Musicwww.myspace.com/547856946

The timing of this thread is interesting to me.I video taped a TV program Sunday night. It was actually a live program but will be aired at other times. I just received a call that the program will be aired at 9:00 pm tonight.The guy who produces it advised me to give out my personal cell phone number in case someone want to be saved or needs someone to pray with them. The first program I did not give my number. Since then I have given my my number over the air. Thank God, I have not been bothered by those who want to call and just talk or have petty things (example, my sore toe) to talk or pray about.I am not a full time pastor. I work just like most Christians. But I felt I must give a contact just in case someone needs prayer for salvation.My program air's on 29 local Mediacom stations in my area. Cities from populations of 80,000 - 1,000.I have no way of knowing how many viewers we have. But if only one person comes to Christ, I have been successful. And I would personally consider it an honor to be the one who pray's with them to accept Christ.The last program was about the need of Salvation. I would appreciate if you will pray that those who need salvation will tune in and receive Christ Recorded Sermons @ www.pastorwiley.com

I serve as an "on call" chaplain

at our local hospital and generally my call-outs are to ER or ICU after someone dies.Regardless of the time I always ask if the family has a pastor they would like for me to call.When I served as a pastor (28 years), on occasions I received late night/early morning calls requesting my presence after the death of church or community member.Always thought it was part of my service, and commitment, to the church and community God-HonoringChrist-CenteredBible-BasedSpirit-Led

In our church there are probably only five or six people who have my home phone number. Everyone has my cellphone number, but that would certainly be on silent at 4am.I'm not sure that the issue in the scenario described is so much that of a disconnected pastor as that of either a disconnected member or of a dysfunctional church.I don't see the pastor's job as being that of a chaplain to be there night or day to minister to the church members (that is the Catholic priest model, an unbiblical bottleneck that has often been uncritically adopted by Protestant churches) . The pastor's job, if I understand Ephesians 4correctly, is to prepare the saints for the work of the ministry. So what does this look like in practice?If a member of our church is suddenly bereaved or rushed into hospital, then they are part of a worshipping community. Within hours, other church members will be there. Some will prepare food, some will look after kids, some will pray with folks, some will provide transport. That's how families work, and it's how the church family should work.At some point someone will probably say, Hey, shouldn't we let Nick know about this? At which point I'll get sent a Facebook message or an SMS letting me know what's happening. Usually, by the time I get to a hospital or a funeral home, my role as pastor is totally superfluous, the church members are already caring for one another far better than I ever could.If, for any reason, I need to be notified in the middle of the night, then someone will contact one of our pastoral team (the only people who have my home number). They will then make a judgement call whether to phone my landline or to leave it until after 6am.It's not a case of being uncaring or unavailable - just understanding what the biblical role of a pastor is.The only way I can see a scenario unfolding like the one in the original post would be if the person who died wasn't really part of the church family, but was just a nominal member with no connections in the body Senior Pastor, Solid Rock Church, DroghedaNational Overseer, Church of God, IrelandExecutive Director, Evangelical Alliance Irelandhttp://eaiseanchai.wordpress.com/

This is one of the posts I do not understand. I cannot imagine my dad, unplugging his land line (since that is all we had) at night.We have a pretty large family. If my son is in a wreck at 2AM and critically injured I WANT TO HEAR the phone. I don't care if the other brother is there, I want to be there. Minutes and hours can make the difference in saying the last good by, or holding a loved one's hand as they leave. I know this, I was in plane circling Charlotte, NC unable to land due to weather. WE were diverted to Tennessee. My dad died while I was rushing in a rental car to get there. I did not pastor long, but I did hold to my dad's attitude, call me AT ANY TIME! You are family. There are some positions that cannot be delegated. I guess I am out of touch, but I certainly agree with the sentiment of Doyle here.The local Methodist pastor told his congregation, NEVER call me on Monday, there is nothing so important it cannot wait until Tuesday? That attitude amazes me. But it is possible over the years I have expected too much of the Church Pastor. Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/