4 Ways Church Leaders Can Inspire a Spirit of Hospitality
Christian hospitality is the practice of lovingly and joyfully making room in our lives for others, especially for the poor and the afflicted. And I believe this profound truth should deeply influence how we shepherd our congregations.
Hospitality means receiving someone else, from the heart, into my life (which very often involves receiving them into my home). Hospitality entails providing for the needs, comfort, and delight of someone else, with openness, respect, freedom, tenderness, and joy. Or in other words, with all that love embodies.
If you don’t know me, I’m a foster and adoptive dad—and over the years, I’ve come to understand my role largely in terms of Christian hospitality. I now see that the loving welcome of God was never meant to terminate on me; it was always meant to fuel and nurture and sustain the loving welcome I extend to others.
When I look at our local community here in Houston, I see thousands of children (and adults) who are in need of hospitality.
These vulnerable individuals need men and women who are willing to extend to others the same hospitality they have received from God. But for these men and women to step up and take action, they need churches that will disciple them accordingly.
Here are 4 tips for pastors looking to inspire a sense of hospitality and community service in their congregations:
1) Preach the full scope of the gospel.
What is the gospel?
One common way of defining it is to say, “Jesus died for our sins.” And that’s true. Jesus did die for our sins. But think about it: how does this definition compel us to take positive action in our modern lives—like caring for vulnerable children and families?
I think we can all agree that churches should be able to articulate the gospel in a way that accounts for all that Jesus said He came to accomplish (see Luke 4:18-19, for instance).
The gospel is not just about how individual people get saved; it’s also about how God is establishing a Kingdom of justice and righteousness—not just in the distant future, but right here and right now.
The Christian gospel is the good news that the Kingdom of God has come in Christ (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15, Luke 4:43, Acts 8:12, etc.). As the King of Kings, Jesus has commissioned His people to disciple the nations, and to bring the entire world into the love, righteousness, justice, and equity that characterize life in His Kingdom.
This is why I believe that, rather than saying:
“Two thousand years ago, something really great happened, so let’s care for Houston’s children today.”
We can instead say:
“Two thousand years ago, the King of Kings began a project that’s still ongoing today. So for the sake of Houston’s children, will you join Him?”
When we preach and teach the full scope of the gospel, we see that caring for vulnerable children and families is at the very heart of what Jesus came to do.
LISTEN: How Any Church Can Serve Those Involved in Foster Care
2) Offer the hospitality of God.
God is revealed in Scripture as a communion of three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Within this divine fellowship, love and welcome are eternally being extended. Each Person of the Holy Trinity is always and forever making room for the Others, and it was from the overflow of this hospitality that we were created.
In other words, the loving welcome that is God has been extended to you and me.
God delights in making room for us. We see His hospitality in our creation, our salvation, and our redemption. But really, every Sunday morning is an opportunity to receive the hospitality of God—and to model it for others.
As Christians, we spend all week working to build the Kingdom of God in this world—loving our neighbors, raising our children, pursuing our vocations, experiencing loss, contending in prayer, and bearing the weight of brokenness in the world.
By the time Sunday rolls around, we’re weary. And what does God do? He calls us home.
He welcomes us into His house, receives our confession, and extends His pardon. He washes us, teaches us, and hears our petitions. And then, He lays out a table.
Christian worship thus trains us to be hospitable as God is hospitable.
3) Pastor people into questioning their hesitations.
The call to extend the hospitality of God to needy and vulnerable people seems to elicit from us (myself included) all sorts of excuses:
“Other people are gifted at that sort of thing. I’m not.”
“I’m incredibly busy.”
“My home is too small.”
“We really try to protect our family culture.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I think I’d prefer to just make a donation.”
“Once the kids are older…”
“Once work settles down…”
“Once we buy a bigger house…”
Don’t get me wrong; not every Christian family is called to foster or adopt. But every Christian family is called to extend the hospitality of God somehow. And although seasons change, and there are good reasons to wait, it’s often true that our hesitance is really just disobedience masquerading as discernment.
In the words of Jason Johnson: “Kids in crisis can’t afford to wait until it’s most convenient for you to care for them. They don’t have that luxury. They need you to stop rationalizing what you know God is calling you to do—and just do it.”
As church leaders, we can guide our members toward prayerfully questioning their hesitations and objections. Let the Spirit lead, but the time may have come to turn talk into action.
4) Start with the heart.
Opening your life to others by opening your home to others requires time and money, not to mention mental and emotional bandwidth. If we are honest, it can sometimes feel easier to find the necessary time, money, and bandwidth for easy-to-love people.
But the sort of hospitality called for by Christ is hospitality toward the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind—those who cannot repay you (Luke 14:12-14). And for this, we need roomy hearts. According to a Danish proverb, “Where there’s room in the heart, there’s room in the home.”
Many people suppose that foster care and adoption are for the spiritual elite. And until it becomes your everyday normal, it does look like a radical way of life. But in reality, foster care and adoption are manifestations of what ought to be normative, ordinary, Christian hospitality.
Just as Christ gave Himself for the life of the world, so we give ourselves for the life of the world. This doesn’t mean that all Christians should foster and adopt—there are numerous ways to get involved along the River—but it does mean that all Christians should be on the lookout for opportunities to make room for those in need.
I believe that church leaders have a responsibility not only to help our congregations to experience the hospitality of Christ, but to show them the importance of extending that hospitality to others.
It’s pretty simple: God makes room for us, so we make room for others. When Christians resolve to extend to their neighbors the same love and welcome they have received from God, I believe the Kingdom is near at hand.
We worship a God who makes room, and it’s our joy and privilege to become more and more like Him.
Want to learn more about how your church can extend hospitality to the people of Houston? We’d love to connect with you!
