I just returned from a lovely coffee with an older saint, and it reminded me how crucial these things are to the life of the church. Pastoral home visits and coffee with parishioners should be a thing...a consistent thing, no matter how large your congregation is. I have come to see this more clearly the longer I serve. There is something about stepping into a home, sitting at a table, or sharing a simple cup of coffee that cannot be replaced by emails, texts, or even Sunday conversations. You begin to see people as they really are, not just as they appear in the pew. You hear the tone of their lives. You notice the small things. You sense the burdens that never quite make it into formal speech. I have found that when I neglect this, even unintentionally, my ministry begins to feel thinner. My preaching can drift toward generalities. Faces blur into a crowd. But when I am in the homes of the saints, when I sit across from them and listen, something changes. I carry their stories with me into the pulpit. I pray more particularly. I speak with a greater sense of who is actually before me. It grounds everything. In a larger congregation, I understand the temptation to rely on structure and efficiency. There are always more people, more needs, more moving parts. But I do not believe the answer is to become distant. It simply means we must be more intentional. It may require planning, sharing the load with other elders, or setting aside regular time for these visits, but it should not disappear. If anything, the larger the church, the more deliberate we must be about remaining present. These moments also remind me that the Church is not just what happens on Sunday. When I enter a home, pray with a family, or laugh over coffee, I am reminded that the life of the Church stretches into the ordinary spaces of the week. It is there, in those unspectacular moments, that much of the real shepherding happens. And candidly, I need it as much as they do. It keeps me from becoming a voice rather than a shepherd. It reminds me why I do what I do. It ties my heart to the people God has given me to serve. A church can grow in size, but it should never outgrow this kind of care.