How a TomTom helped someone get their sins forgiven
Navigation systems. There are dozens of options out there, and from what I’ve heard almost all of them work (even paper maps–if you know how to fold and unfold them). That’s not the issue. The issue is, is a navigation device a useful tool in pastoral care? In my experience, the answer is a resounding yes.
About a year ago, my wife and I were debating what to get ourselves with some of the money members of our congregation had given us for Christmas.
We’d batted around the idea of a GPS, and we eventually took advantage of a good deal on Amazon and got a TomTom One for less than a hundred dollars. Being a man, I was soon using the GPS constantly. It’s a gadget. Playing with gizmos is what I do… A few weeks after we got the TomTom, I needed to go to a funeral visitation in a town I’d never been to. Obviously, I’d never been to the funeral home either.
The TomTom got me there very well. While I was visiting with the bereaved and sharing the hope of the resurrection with them, I learned from one of my elders (who was also there) that one of my shut-ins had been rushed to the hospital earlier that day. The word had not yet gotten to me, but would have shortly.
Without the TomTom, it would have been about a 2 1/2 hour drive from the funeral home to the hospital because I didn’t know the roads in that area well enough to know the best route. With the TomTom, the trip was just over an hour, and that allowed me to bring the Lord’s Supper to my member in the hospital without being late for the bible study I was teaching at a member’s house that night.
Without the TomTom, I would have had to make a difficult decision: Visit the member that day, or wait. I could have gotten directions another way, but that would have taken time, may not have been reliable (or comprehensible to a “foreigner” like me), and the roads in the town (and county) where I was are not well marked.
The TomTom allowed me to care for both families that day and bring them the Word of the Gospel that they needed, and it allowed me to do so without there being any need to weigh one pastoral duty against another.
That is not the first time that a changing pastoral situation has made my TomTom a valuable tool in the past year.
Here are a few of the ways that I’ve been able to make my use of the TomTom even more effective.
1. Use the “Favorites” feature:
I’ve added as favorites the locations of all of the following: my shut-ins’ homes, hospitals and nursing homes I frequently visit, churches in my circuit. This is an important help for me because I never know where I will be when I learn about an urgent pastoral visit you need to make. Since most of my circuit meetings are in Pittsburgh, it can make a significant difference in time and mileage whether I’m going from Pittsburgh to my neighborhood (Accident, MD); the Morgantown, WV area; Somerset, PA; or further east in Maryland.
2. Carry a church directory in the car.
Since it’s not practical or necessary to program every member of the congregation into the TomTom, I bring a church phone/address directory in the car with me. This gives me the data I need to make the TomTom do what I need it to do.
3. Don’t panic.
Some avoid the use of TomToms and similar technologies because they occasionally don’t get you to the exact location you’re heading for. Sometimes they take you down a route that you know is not the best. In the first case, just look around and use common sense. I’ve never been led so far astray that I couldn’t find what I was looking for from the place that the TomTom took me. In the second case, go your way. That’s a time when the TomTom isn’t an essential tool, but rather a convenience.
Now that I have had my navigation device for most of a year, I wish I’d purchased it when I first took the call to my current charge. It has been very helpful in navigating the many unmarked roads in this area. It has also been an excellent resource in learning routes that I would not have learned on my own until I’d lived here 5 or more years.
Being where your people are when they need you to be there is one of the most important and basic tasks of the pastoral ministry. You can do that without a navigation device, but for a pastor in an unfamiliar (or geographically vast) area, this sort of tool can save you miles and time and allow you to get to more of your people in a given day. That has made it a very worthwhile investment for me.
Pastor Charles Lehmann
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November 30th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
When I rent a car and go teaching in various places, I try to get a TomTom, Garmin, or Hertz NeverLost, especially when I’m going to a new location. Very, very nifty.
December 1st, 2009 at 6:22 am
My experience is with a Garmin (Full Disclosure: My son is an engineer for Garmin). He gave us one for Father’s day. On the way back from Higher Things this summer in Texas we ran into traffic accidents in Austin. The Garmin spoke up and automatically re-routed us around it all saving us hours. I love the thing and use it as much as possible. It is even helpful when I know where I’m going because I can see a bird’s eye view map of where I am. In a word, GPS great first article gift! Use ‘em.
December 1st, 2009 at 6:27 am
Charles:
Very good commentary about the usefulness of GPS, especially out East where the roads are only occasionally straight.
Some parishes give chalices and bibles to ordained/installed ministers; for those outside of the Midwest (with its easy-to-learn section roads), a GPS unit should be on the pastor’s desk the day after his installation!
LTZ