wonders and reflections in God's presence

I took the spiritual gift inventory and “hospitality” was NOT one of my gifts!  But there were people in my church who were off the charts in hospitality!  You know who they are – the ones who are always preparing table decorations for the next church dinner.  They are the ones who love to cook, bake, decorate, and entertain – the Martha Stewarts of your church.  Now, I love being with people; and I actually love to host parties at my house.  But, for me, hospitality amounts to the following: “There’s the refrigeration, and there’s the pantry; when you’re hungry, help yourself.”

Most recently I’ve been reading that hospitality is a key to successful church growth.  The experts make a distinction between merely being a “friendly church” and a church that shows “real hospitality.”  We’ve all heard of the jokes about the frozen chosen.  Perhaps you’ve even visited a church one Sunday and had no one say a word to you the whole time you were there.  Even churches that consider themselves “friendly” are warm and open to each other, but relatively cold to the stranger.  You know that a sanctuary that is only 60% occupied on a Sunday morning, can still feel “full” and closed to an outsider.

To our credit, most of our churches have become much better at appearing friendly.  We have greeters are placed strategically at the door to meet visitors with a smile.  Information desks and Welcome Centers are geared especially for newcomers who are seeking information on the church.  We wear nametags so we can greet each other by name.  More and more, there are genuine smiles and welcomes come from people in the pews, and sometimes even invitations to join new groups in the church.  But real hospitality, radical hospitality, is even more than that … and it doesn’t have much to do with table decorations either.  Radical hospitality has to do with making room in your life for someone.  To be a growing church, we need to make room not only in the church, but in our lives, for new people.

For centuries (even millenniums) hospitality has been a moral mandate.  It involved welcoming the stranger.  Not just smiling at them and saying how happy you are to meet them, but really welcoming them into our homes and offering them food, shelter, and protection.[1]  Remember the condemnation God had for the city of Sodom when they were not hospitable to the strangers in their midst.  As Christians, too, we are called to welcome the strangers into our homes.

In some post-evangelical conversations there is a distinction being made between the Gospel about Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The latter being the Good News that Jesus, himself, proclaimed in his teachings and that he sent the apostles out to proclaim.  In the sending of the seventy, for instance, Jesus tells the apostles, “… say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’” (Luke 10:9 NRSV) Or, as Eugene Peterson translates it in The Message, “… tell them, ‘God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!’”

As Kevin Boyd led the presbytery staff in mid-week prayer and Holy Communion the Wednesday after Katrina hit, he shared with us the response St. Paul had been offering a handful of families stranded in a hotel nearby the church.  He said they literally started showing up on their doorstep family after family after family.  A few families from New Orleans grew to over 100 people within days.  Each one had a similar story.  They had sought refuge in an inexpensive hotel for a night or two; but their money was quickly running out.  They needed food; shelter; and many other daily necessities.

Kevin said, “We felt called to do what we could.”  They started by paying hotel bills for the stranded families; then they began offering a hot supper each night for those who were displaced.  Some nights they fed 40; other nights they fed over 100.  The dinners turned into wonderful times of fellowship.  The people of St. Paul helped the families by providing prayer, friendship, clothing, Bibles, gas, and personal items.  They helped them sign up for food stamps, gave them job leads, sat together with them in hospital rooms, and shared all the latest information on hurricane relief as it became available.

On Sunday over 35 of the evacuees from New Orleans came to worship with the people of St. Paul, and just prior to communion they heard one of the guests sing the spiritual, “God Has Been Good to Me.”  God’s kingdom was right on their doorstep alright.

I think of all the churches in our presbytery that have similar stories to tell.  And all I hear in my mind is the echoing phrase from The Message “God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!”  One thing is clear to me – our churches have been changed by what they gave and by what they received in answering God’s call.  Whether it was a sheltering people in their fellowship hall or providing money for the feeding of the thousands at the Astrodome … all we have to do to see the awesome majesty of God’s kingdom is open our eyes … it’s right here on our doorstep, in our emails, in our connectedness, in our oneness and compassion.

In an email about a week after they began caring for their neighbors in need, Kevin writes, “We began this process by saying, ‘we can’t!’ God answered quietly, ‘No, but I can!’”  He went on to share all of the miraculous ways people of faith came together and provided for these people.  The result was far greater than anything the people of St. Paul Presbyterian could have hoped for on their own.  To me, that’s the essence of the Gospel.  “No, you can’t, but I can, and I will.”

My prayer today is that as we continue responding to the needs of those impacted by Katrina, we will all pause and remember … the kingdom of God is right on our doorstep!

printed in the October 2005 issue of Connections, a publication of the Presbytery of New Covenant