The Gift of Hospitality

Every Monday evening we have dinner with our neighbors and in turn, they have dinner at our place every Wednesday evening. We have also invited some other families into this routine. Tonight we all sat around after dinner and talked and laughed and enjoyed mostly meaningless conversation. But afterward, I could tell how important community is to me.

I am amazed by how refreshing true community is and how the gift of hospitality affects me. When I spend time with people in the natural rhythms of everyday life, I am so energized. When I share life with others, when I laugh with others, when I just enjoy being together with people, I feel hope and joy rise up within me.

I read an article the other day on Christianity Today and couldn't get past this sentence:

“America is suffering from a serious deficit of hospitality”

This truth saddens me especially as I see it happening in the church. I am learning more and more through experience that God has wired us to be together. Not necessarily together for the sake of trying to achieve something or accomplish something, but just being together for the sake of being together. Enjoying each others' presence, humor, perspectives, thoughts, opinions.

This makes me want to be a hospitable person and to plant a hospitable church. Less programs, more relationships. Less accomplishing things for God and more enjoying God and His children. I love how Michael Gatlin, the director of church planting for Vineyard USA, defines hospitality:

“One idea of hospitality that I've come across over the years is this – It's the ability to make/help others feel comfortable in your presence. I like this because we often only think of inviting others over for a meal, or into our homes. But truly hospitable people are that way everywhere they go, and anywhere they happen to be. These are the folks who go out of their way to meet newcomers, make every person in the room feel relaxed, welcomed, and even refreshed. They are the sensitive ones, observing how other's respond to or engage with the conversation. They ask questions and actually listen for the answers (a novel idea, I know!). It's the kind of person that practices Philippians 2 all day long! When I spot one of these folks in a room full of people, they're the ones I want to be with and want to emulate. 
I wonder what would need to change in the way we interacted with others for us to become truly hospitable in any or every situation?” 

Wouldn't it be cool to be this type of person? Wouldn't it be cool to be a part of church full of people who are practicing hospitality?  

Hospitality is a gift from God and I think we don't take advantage of it in the way He intends. There is life and hope in community. I, for one, want to make plenty margin in my life and in my church for this amazing gift.