Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Hospitality and Outreach

Outreach & Hospitality

Among the qualities of church leadership listed in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, outreach or evangelism is not mentioned among the qualities of a leader, but both places mention that a leader should be hospitable. We might take this to mean just be friendly or perhaps think of a gift of hospitality, but in biblical times hospitality was one of the primary ways that the church would reach out to new people.

In the Old Testament, hospitality was a duty to welcome and provide for strangers and aliens in your land. Abraham exemplified this when he welcomed in three men who ended up being angels, one being the angel of the Lord (Genesis 18:2-8).  In the New Testament, we see that Jesus received hospitality as the stranger and wanderer who was frequently welcomed into people’s homes.He was also the one who practiced hospitality by breaking down barriers and welcoming people into his friendship who would other wise have been outcasts to a Jewish leader (John 4:1-42, Luke 19:1-10).

Being hospitable is one of the easiest and most natural forms of outreach, because anyone can do it even if they have never read a how to book on evangelism or taken an evangelism class.  I would like to encourage us to be hospitable in three areas of our lives.

First, in your personal lives you can be hospitable by having a welcoming attitude. Pray that God would give you His heart for the people around you, whether you are at school, work, shopping or in your neighborhood. A smile and a hello go a long way in making a connection. You could open a door for a stranger or help a neighbor bring in groceries. These seemingly small kindnesses can open a door for a connection that God can use to build deeper relationships. We need to be prepared to open our lives to the new people that God puts in front of us. This is the hardest part of hospitality, because it will often mean making sacrificial choices of things we like to do to open up space in our lives.

Our homes and families are a second place where we can be hospitable. We can invite neighbors over or develop deeper relationships within the church by opening our homes and families to outsiders. Perhaps your house can become the cool hangout place where all the kids from school or the team like to come because yours is a safe and welcoming home. The front door to the church and the first place that many people see the gospel lived out is most frequently in the homes of Christians who show Christ’s love in this very personal way.

Finally, we need to be hospitable when we come together as a church body, whether at Sunday worship or other meetings throughout the week. When someone new comes, they have taken a personal risk to come into a strange setting with new people, so we need to help them overcome the barriers by being very welcoming. When you see someone new at church, give them a smile and a handshake. We need to listen to their story and be ready to invite them into our lives. Often they look different and behave different, but it is those very differences that help us learn to love like God does. He reached out to us when we were not just different, but His enemies. When we learn to overcome barriers, we are learning to look beyond the differences and see the person that God loves and He wants to show His love through us. 


My prayer is that hospitality would be a hallmark of my life, my family's life, and my church's life. With God's help we would be known as safe and welcomed people whether at a Sunday service, in our homes, or on the street.