When entering the ministry back in 1983, I had Dad’s wise counsel to help my beginnings. His counsel ran the path of short and pithy statements, one of which was “a home visiting pastor makes a churchgoing people.”

This came to mind when I was writing yesterday about our graveyard in Rosedale and mentioned visiting our church patriarch, Sam Westra. Taking Dad’s advice, I made it a habit to visit the flock there in rural Wisconsin, and those visits were indispensable to my care for their souls.

Back then pastoral visits were still possible in a way they aren’t as much now. Rosedale was a farm community, so if I stopped in to see the couple, the man of the house was often in the barn or milk parlor and could come in...

What’s the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard?

The word “cemetery” is from the Greek κοιμητήριον (sleeping place) and is simply a place for burying our dead. A graveyard, though, is a kind of cemetery distinguished by being a part of the churchyard surrounding the church-house.

When I took our first call to pastor a yoked parish in Wisconsin, our country parish was Rosedale Presbyterian Church in Cambria, Wisconsin, and Rosedale had a graveyard. It butted up against the back and extended some distance to the east and west of the church-house.

The setting was instructive...