Practice Hospitality

Meet Susan.

She’s a visitor to St. Every Church, that has a congregation of roughly two hundred and fifty. After the service, she’s greeted by a lovely couple, who are kind, and interested in her life. After about ten minutes of conversation, she goes to find some coffee. She meets a nice lady serving drinks, chats with her, and then leaves.

She goes home and has lunch on her own.

Most of the church members go home and have lunch with their families.

She attends St. Every Church every Sunday for two months. She can’t make any of the mid-week meetings because of her work schedule, so her only contact with the church is on a Sunday. After two months, she’s never been invited to someone’s home for lunch. Not once.

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This scenario, or some variation of it, is not uncommon in the UK. People visit a church, but an invitation to lunch is not extended. Many churches don’t even know if they have had visitors. Some of the possible reasons given by a church leader might be:

• Someone else is covering this.

• We have a welcome team; it’s their job.

• We just let the Spirit lead people to invite visitors to lunch.

The above scenario should be unsettling to you. It should cause ripples of unease in your soul. If this is how we in the church handle hospitality to visitors on a Sunday, then something isn’t right.

So, today, a question for you. The apostle Paul writes two words at the end of Romans 12.13.

Practice hospitality.

My question is this: Is hospitality something that is optional, a kind of ‘if you can manage it, great, but if not, don’t worry, it’s not for everyone’? Is it that kind of thing? Or is hospitality an essential practice that should define a follower of Jesus?

WHY IS HOSPITALITY SO IMPORTANT?

First, a quick summation of why hospitality is so important.

There are dozens of reasons, so I’ll just highlight a few very briefly.

Old Testament – The law specifically called on the Israelites to extend hospitality to strangers.

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Lev 19.34

New Testament – Hospitality was a sign of the new birth.

All the believers were together and had everything in common . . . They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people.

Acts 2.44;46b-47a

Lydia – The moment she begins following Jesus, she immediately invites Paul and others into her home. ‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord’, she said, ‘come and stay at my house’ (Acts 16.15b).

Zacchaeus – Jesus extends grace to the little man by inviting himself to his home! Eating together is a sign of grace offered to a sinner, and when accepted, Jesus says, ‘Today salvation has come to this house’ (Luke 19.9b).

In addition to Romans 12.13, we could add 1 Peter 4.9: Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. In his letters to both Timothy and Titus, Paul teaches that elders should be hospitable. It’s a requirement for service.

The gospel itself is essentially an expression of hospitality. Gentiles are ‘grafted into’ Israel, God’s people. Invited in. The supreme symbol for this is the Lord’s supper, an act of hospitality round a table. This is why the early church was truly counter-cultural in the Roman world. Christians were recognised as those who took in orphans and widows, giving homes to those without. They understood that following Jesus was a call to open their homes, just as the Lord had invited them into fellowship with him.

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I have been very brief here, because at St. Every Church, the problem isn’t that the church members don’t believe in hospitality. They do. Instead, this is a church culture problem. It’s an issue to do with the kind of people we are in the West.

We are individualistic, valuing our own personal freedoms above all else.

That’s why when Susan leaves the church building each Sunday, every member thinks it’s someone else’s job. Is that a valid response? I’m not sure it is. Not if someone like Susan can attend your church week after week and never be invited into anyone’s home.

Ultimately, however, if hospitality is not being extended, it’s a leadership problem.

The leader must do something to address the problem.

So, here is a template for implementing change in your church. It is possible, but it requires firm resolve, courage and perseverance. It’s not enough to hope that change will come.

You must go after it. Here’s how.

MODEL

It goes without saying that if you don’t model hospitality, then your people will find you out. Your teaching will sound hollow, and they won’t listen to you however ardent your preaching is on the subject. There’s a leader in my city, who invites all kinds of people to a barbecue at his home in the summer. Students, singles, couples, old, young, and of course, visitors. I think everyone in the church has been to one of his barbecues. You may not be able to do that, but you can do something. Anyone can.

TEACH

Begin with Romans 12.13. Run a series on hospitality in the New Testament. And make sure to include the one verse most likely to engender change in a person’s heart.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom 5.8

Why this verse?

Because it cuts right to the heart of the issue. We cannot wait for our visitors to come to us. We must go out to them, and invite them in. As Christ came for us, so we must come for them. We cannot wait for them to put up their hand and say, ‘will you invite me?’ God didn’t behave that way when we were lost.

He initiated. As leaders, so must we.

CAST VISION

When speaking about the values of the church, include hospitality. Describe it not as an option, but a lifestyle expected of all believers. Include it in your messaging. Ensure your elders are on the same page, extending hospitality frequently, and living a life of hospitality.

ORGANISE

You can model, teach, and cast vision, but unless you organise, you may well find there is no change in your church culture. The first three are relatively easy to implement. The last one - organisation - requires courage and strength. Anyone can appeal to people from the front of a church, hoping people will respond. Implementing actual change?

That requires organisation. A plan of action.

How might it be done?

FORM A TEAM

It’s not enough to make an announcement. You have to go to people and ask them to join. Start with your elders. The larger the team, the less commitment that’s required. So, Steve, you and Sally would be on the rota just once a month. Making yourselves available to host a visitor. Can you help me with that?

INFORM THE CHURCH

Tell the whole church (and publicise) that there’s a hospitality team, and if they meet a visitor on a Sunday, who is interested in going to someone’s home for lunch, take them to the coordinator at the back of the church. Introduce this person and ask them to communicate the vision.

This is just one idea. There are so many ways to do this.

It’s worth adding that Sunday lunch is simply the tip of the iceberg (apologies for the cliché.) Hospitality is a way of life, not an option on the menu of Christian virtues. Opening our homes should be a frequent and joyful practice, that characterises all believers.

OBJECTIONS

I can hear the objections already—some more valid than others—so let me remind you of the parable of the banquet (Matt 22; Luke 14). Guests were invited but many gave excuses. So they were left out of God’s blessing. The Lord calls us to grow, to make sacrifices, to depart from our comfort zones and embrace the life of the kingdom. You only have a one room bedsit? That’s plenty. Small children? Is that really a reason to pull up the drawbridge and say, ‘it’s not convenient for us right now’?

The majority of difficulties can be handled if leaders embrace the following qualities.

• Intense desire to change the culture.

• Persistence. Ask again. Ask more people. Don’t give up.

• Delegation and organisation. Find like-minded organisational types, who can help recruit and instil a hospitality culture.

• A love for Jesus so strong that you refuse to see visitors ever leave your church without an invitation into a home.

Let me end, then, with an entry from Susan’s diary, written twenty years after visiting St. Every Church. This time, though, let’s imagine that back then, the church had a hospitality culture.

SUSAN’S DIARY

I’ll never forget the first time I visited St. Every Church. Penny in her funny hat, but so kind and welcoming. What a rock she’s been to me. The coffee was dreadful, still is, but I expected that! I was burdened, distracted, and truthfully, I was in a bad place. I remember standing at the back—looking lost, probably—and Greg approached me with a clipboard. I thought I was in trouble! An hour later and I was sitting in his home, with his family gathered around me at the dining room table. There I was, wondering how I’d ended up there. The roast was making my mouth water, but before we began, Greg asked Chloe to read a Scripture.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

‘Susan’, he said, ‘we don’t own any of this. And we don’t deserve any of it, either’. I remember being a bit shocked by this. ‘All we have’, he went on, ‘comes from our Father in heaven. When we were lost and wandering, he sent his Son to rescue us. To die for us. He invited us to join his family. So, in a small way, we’ve done the same thing for you. We’re simply sharing the gifts we’ve received from our generous God. It's a joy to share them with you today.’

That moment right then, it was a picture of heaven, and it changed my life.

How many years is it now? Fifteen, I think. My role as the hospitality coordinator has been one of the greatest joys of my life.

I opened the door to my gracious God, who has come in to eat with me, and I with him.

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