Hospitality

"The front door of the home is the side door to the church." Over the years, Gilbert and I have had opportunities to welcome people into our home for meals, overnight stays and sometimes for extended stays. It has been a blessing to us. We are praying that the Lord will continue to give us opportunities to open our home to others and that He will help us understand more biblical patterns of hospitality. Christine Pohl in her book, Making Room, Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, reminds us that Paul urged fellow Christians to welcome one another as Christ had welcomed them. He challenged the early believers to "pursue" hospitality. For the people of ancient Israel, understanding themselves as strangers and sojourners, with responsibility to care for vulnerable strangers in their midst, was part of what it meant to be the people of God. For most of the history of the church, hospitality was understood to encompass physical, social, and spiritual dimensions of human existence and relationships. It involved shared meals; historically, table fellowship was an important way of recognizing the equal value and dignity of persons. Hospitality, because it was such a fundamental human practice, always included family, friends, and influential contacts. The distinctive Christian contribution was the emphasis on including the poor and neediest, the ones who could not return the favor. This focus did not diminish the value of hospitality to family and friends; rather, it broadened the practice so that the close relations formed by table fellowship and conversation could be extended to the most vulnerable. Hopefully we will be able to picture Christ by showing hospitality to others....and the church will grow. "The front door of the home is the side door of the church." ora et labora