All tagged hospitality
Whether it is a stranger needing shelter from the elements, a visitor needing someone to share a meal, or a newcomer needing community, resolve to be the one to welcome—even if you have to leave the comfort of your home and trudge through the storm to invite them in. Be purposeful about welcoming others, and plan to surprise someone with unusual kindness.
We’ve all had negative experiences with all kinds of organizations. Retail is one thing, but at church we simply can’t afford to accidentally send a message that says, “We don’t care if you are here or not.” Because Jesus wants to be in relationship with us, we are naturally inspired to be in relationship with others. That requires conversation and warmly welcoming new people.
When churches preach Jesus Christ, call people to discipleship, welcome all to community and shared life, practice hospitality and care for others, then churches continually find opportunities to live into a simple Christian witness.
In Unreasonable Hospitality, Guidara describes both his personal journey in the dining industry and how he developed his obsessive pursuit of being hospitable.
It’s so easy to think of others as our enemies. We can give in to the impulse to demonize, to withdraw, or to insult. What if we followed Polycarp’s example by finding ways to show hospitality?
Do your people know how to sincerely welcome guests? Even if they used to, the pandemic has altered how we interact with others, and they may have forgotten how.
Imagine that you are happily married at age twenty. What would you do if, by age thirty, you became widowed and penniless, and a parent to a dozen children?
Christ confesses in his Phil. 2 hymn that every knee that bows brings glory to God the Father.
In order to imagine ourselves in difference-making positions, we all need models in place, models who look like we do and who don’t all look like each other.
Radical hospitality calls us to ask ourselves what amount of our own preference might we be willing to sacrifice to create space for the perceived need of another.
Friday is National Lemonade Day, so buy an extra cup and share it in Jesus’s name, confident that it makes a difference for eternity.
Because of your protection, I sing. I stay close to you; your right hand supports me.
As the created world hosts humanity, we have much to learn from the soil, from the seeds. Stretching toward the light, cultivated hearts propagate God’s mission.
Everyone knows each other in rural towns, but I have come to know that there is a difference between knowing of someone and actually knowing them.
Inclusion means that the congregation embraces the inherent value in all voices and seeks to make them an active part of the whole.
Rather than rush from one thing to another, healthy churches live with meaning and intentionality, doing what they do with excellence.
Jesus touches people and heals them. He defends them against their accusers. He embraces the unembraceable.
We do not see individualized, compartmentalized faith modeled in the New Testament.
These reasons for growth transcend simply being at the right place at the right time.
When a biblical writer says something like “this is pleasing to God,” we’d better lean in and take a close look because that sounds important.
