Hospitality: Invite and Include
“Seek to show hospitality.”
Romans 12:13 (ESV)
I’ve written a good bit through the years about biblical hospitality. My Granny Muir, my Mama, and other older godly women all modeled biblical hospitality for me. (You can find some of that work here, here, and here.) Biblical hospitality is very different from entertaining. Biblical hospitality:
focuses on others rather than self;
provides the gift of place and
seeks to make others feel welcomed, wanted, and worth the trouble.
Karen Mains writing in her classic hospitality book Open Heart, Open Home writes, "I have learned to measure the success of my efforts at hospitality against the measurement of this question; "Did something sacred occur here in these rooms, around this table, in the moments of our meeting together?" And without a doubt, my answer to Mains' question is a resounding, "Yes!" Laughter, tears, sharing the hope of the Gospel, entering into another's suffering, rejoicing with those who rejoice, taking family photos, and making memories have all occurred around our table.
But biblical hospitality doesn’t need to be limited to just our homes. We can also practice hospitality in our workplaces, churches, neighborhoods, schools, and communities by extending grace and offering a safe place for people to gather. The gift of place provides a space for people to be accepted, affirmed, and allowed to grow. Invitation and inclusion are two essential actions required for practicing hospitality no matter the location. Biblical hospitality reaches out to those in need, meets people exactly where they are, and attempts to make them feel welcomed and wanted.
In 2007 I began praying that God would allow me to use my pharmacist skills to serve on a medical mission trip. It seemed like an impossible request because of all the logistics associated with James Bruce’s care, but I kept praying. Little did I know how God would answer that prayer.
One Saturday Bruce, James Bruce, and I attended a Special Connections family lake picnic. Another special-needs Mom had, on the spur of the moment, invited a new family to come. Surprisingly, they did- all the way from Hungary! As we chatted that day, I learned that my new friend Adrien and I shared much in common. Adrien was a special needs mom living less than ten minutes from my house. She was also a pharmacist in Hungary and her husband, a cardiologist, was working on his PhD at UAB. We connected almost immediately.
My excitement rose quickly. What was the likelihood of a Hungarian pharmacist/special needs mom living in my community coming to our special-needs family lake outing?
"Where do you go to church?" I asked hesitantly.
"We'd like to go to church, but we don't know where to go,” Adrien replied. “Where do you go?"
With that exchange, Adrien literally walked into my life. My longed-for short-term mission trip became a 22 month friendship that didn’t just change Adrien’s life; it changed mine! Together Adrien and I enjoyed coffee at Panera, lunch at O'Carr's, Sunday School at Briarwood, covered dish dinners, special education IEPs, and multiple ESL flash card sessions. God provided numerous life-on-life activities and ways to practice hospitality. Family weddings, Christmas nativity walk-throughs, Bridge-to-Life conversations, and high school baseball games all provided opportunities to demonstrate hospitality and develop our friendship until Adrien and her family returned to Hungary. Along the way, I was privileged to see many changes come into my new friend's life, but none was more significant than the day I drew the Bridge-to-Life diagram on a restaurant paper napkin. We were eating lunch when Adrien suddenly cried, "I now know why we had to come to the United States. I finally have some light in my darkness!"
My friendship with Adrien probably wouldn’t have happened without my other friend’s kind Invitation. Ultimately that invitation prepared Adrien to accept a greater invitation to personally know Jesus. Invitation and inclusion require us to take a risk, get out of our comfort zone, and look beyond ourselves. There are countless ways we can provide biblical hospitality. Not all of them include providing food or opening our homes, but each one requires us opening our hearts.
Who do you know that would benefit from your hospitality, invitation, and inclusion?
“Hospitality isn’t only for people who own homes, John.” (Jesus to the Apostle John, Season 1 Episode 7, The Chosen)