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Hospitality Revisited

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by Brian Waple

I’ve been thinking about hospitality and asking myself, Am I a hospitable person? And, what could God be calling me to so that I would be more hospitable? What does that look like? My brother-in-law is a very hospitable person, and I’ve tried to be more like him in that area. In addition to opening his home to his congregation (he’s a pastor), he engages in a form of hospitality that I’ve tried to embrace. It looks like this: You go into a shop, or a restaurant, or a drive-up window, or whatever. Normally, there is a person there to help you, serve you, or wait on you. They might be a cashier. If you look, they usually have a light-colored name tag with their name in dark letters: Bob, or Mary, or Cindy, or Dylan. We don’t always take the time to look at the name tag because we’re too involved in what we’re doing, we’re too busy talking with our friends, or we just don’t care. But, how difficult would it be to take notice and let them know that in being noticed, you value them as a person? Call them by their name and they feel valued. And, isn’t that also part of what being hospitable means? I think you learn to be hospitable by being a hospitable person. No one should have to show you how that works. I have found that when you show interest in others, they are more likely to be willing to show an interest in being with and helping you. And, isn’t that how developing relationships start? Isn’t that how opening ourselves and being hospitable to others starts?

I’ve also come to believe that even if we don’t agree with what some people say, how they act, or what they do, everyone deserves to be acknowledged. Now, this doesn’t mean that we make them our best friends or that we agree with how they live or what they say or do, but we acknowledge them and show them that we respect them as people because they are, after all, God’s creatures. Now, I’ll be honest, I’m the first to admit I struggle with this. But, if we’re called to be hospitable people, how can we not be willing to acknowledge those we may find difficult? There’s that wonderful passage in Matthew:

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.” Then these righteous ones will reply, “Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will say, “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:34–40, NLT [my italics])

So, being hospitable doesn’t take a lot of effort. It can be as simple as addressing the next person who helps you or serves you or waits on you by their name. This shows them that you value them as a person. And it helps us learn to be the hospitable Body God is calling us to be.

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Hospitality 101

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by Jeff Foerster

Biblical hospitality is a posture and practice of being with people, friends and strangers, in ways where they feel welcomed, included, accepted, and cared for.

I like the idea of hospitality; I really do. I get a picture in my mind’s eye of my role as host, welcoming guests and providing food, activity, or both. I see conversation, smiles, maybe laughter, and generally an overall enjoyable time. I want to be seen as a good host—to be liked, respected.

But hospitality is more than an activity to serve my purposes; it emanates from the character of God Himself. When we engage in hospitality toward others, we make known a taste of the character of God Almighty. In it we offer cool water to parched lips, shade from scorching sun, relationship in a world of increasing isolation.

There is a desire within each of us to be known and, at that moment of intimacy, to be accepted, valued. Hospitality is an invitation and an opportunity to usher others into the presence of God through our demonstrated interest and kindness. We act as representatives of our Father, by His design.

I hope the following questions incite curiosity and continued conversation:

Have I been able to experience the hospitality of God?

What is the heart of hospitality?

What is it that prevents me from exhibiting hospitality? From desiring hospitality?

Where does one begin practicing hospitality?

What am I willing to sacrifice in order to make hospitality a priority?

More than anything else, I want to leave you with one nugget of understanding. Hospitality originates not in asking, “What would Jesus DO?” Rather, we ask, “How would Jesus BE?” This is not another task to pile onto an overcrowded plate. It begins with an attitude of submission to God and a heart developing to see the depth of need for others to be known and the depth of desire Jesus had, facing the cross, to bridge the gap between His Father and a hurting world.

May we pick up that torch that burned in His heart, putting to death the desires of the flesh, and may we take risks and make sacrifices to know others and make Him known!

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I Don’t See That!

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By Brian Sharpe, Senior Associate Pastor

I have gone to the gym a lot in my adult life. Most of this time has been spent playing basketball. I have seen a lot of guys play basketball and I have played against a lot of different people. I will always remember one guy. He had the right shoes, shorts, and shirt. He wore a sleeve on his arm and a headband like NBA players. He had all the right gear and the confidence that went with someone who could play basketball well. The problem was he was not good at basketball. Not good at all! People would wait out games so that they wouldn’t have to play with him.

I once tried to talk to him and help him be a better team player, but he wanted nothing to do with me. He knew how to play and didn’t want to hear from anyone. I felt so bad for this guy because he was so unaware. He didn’t want help.

I want to be a person who is known for listening to my mentors. I want to be known as someone who is willing to learn from my mistakes. Humility, self-control, and meekness are things that God wants to be part of the outworking of our faith. As He changes our inner being, our interactions with others will change.

We all have blind spots we are unaware of, and if we don’t surround ourselves with people we can hear from, we will never know what these blind spots are. The hard part is giving people the freedom to speak into our blind spots. God calls us to be meek. The word meek carries the idea of a horse that has been broken. The horse is powerful but is under control.

God has called us to be people who are under control. One of the ways we are under control is if we are allowing the Spirit of God through circumstance, spiritual mentors, and friends to point out these blind spots, and we are willing to deal with them.

I find that people want to know about their blind spots, but they aren’t sure what to do with what they now know. Most people are moved to inaction. Change is hard! But we all must change. We all must allow our blind spots to be pointed out. If we don’t, then our growth will be stunted.

Do you have a or Paul or Barnabas in your life, people you allow to point out your blind spots? When they do point out bind spots, are you willing to listen to them? Are you willing to act on them? Trust is shown by one’s ability to act on advice given. I think a lot of us say we trust, but our actions say otherwise.

My prayer for me and you is that we would trust those whom God has placed in our lives, that we would be open to learning about our blind spots and be moved to action instead of complacency.

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A Great Evangelist

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By Dan Amos

After Billy Graham died, my wife posted, “Can’t we all hear it? ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.'” I did a search on the reference to the parable of the servants in Matthew 25 and the results linked to many stories about Reverend Graham. He was a star of the evangelical Christian world, a man of good repute. We can easily imagine his homecoming, with Jesus waiting to welcome him.

The referenced parable has a couple of challenges for us. In the parable, Jesus told of servants being given varying amounts of responsibility and the servants carrying them out with varying levels of effort. Two served their master well and were diligent. One did not really like his master and chose to sit on what was given to him and do nothing. The first two were praised and rewarded. The third was chastised and cast out from the master’s presence.

Rev. Graham was reported as wondering why God had given him the ministry he did. We can easily equate him to the first servant who was given the most and produced a great return for the master. In terms of ministry, you may feel like you were given talents, gifts, ministry—or whatever you want to call it—more in line with the second or third servants. They may be smaller in human terms, but they are important to the master. Rev. Graham’s ministry was propelled by the Holy Spirit; the results are the Spirit’s work, just as any spiritual production of which we might be part. Our role is to be faithful in what we’ve been given and leave the results to God.

In the parable, the third servant is characterized differently than the first two. The third servant was critical of the master. He did not serve him with his whole heart. Indifferent or apathetic service, just going through the motions, is not service to the master but an outward show that doesn’t match an inward conviction. In this case, Jesus says the heart attitude is exposed and the servant is not truly a servant, is not saved, and will not be welcomed into the Master’s home. The faithless servant will see no reward and will spend eternity with all others lacking faith.

In part, the parable’s servants are judged by the results of their faith and rewarded accordingly. They are also judged on their faith. This judgment of faith is yes or no. Rev. Graham’s simple message straight from the Bible is we are all sinners and we all need the Savior. Billy knelt as a teenager and confessed his sin to Jesus. Jesus’s blood spilled 2,000 years earlier remains just as powerful then as it does today and has covered Billy’s sins and mine. Regardless of the things he achieved, the Father can only see Billy as righteous through the blood of Christ. That is the simple, enduring, and only way to salvation.

 

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The Church as the Center of the Community

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By Bill Naron

To the believers amongst the body of Elim,

I have been meditating lately on the hope we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How sure is our hope because He gave his body for us and rose victorious over death and sin. He paid the debt that we were enslaved to from our birth. Jesus is our hope and the catalyst that began a revolution, the original counter to culture, and we are called to follow suit.

Comparing today’s American Christian churches with that of the first-century church, I see vast differences in the way they operate. One of the more apparent changes is that the overwhelming number of programs offered by today’s churches tend to be more self-help, fellowship, or inward-focused. I cannot help but be bewildered by the stark contrast to that of the first-century church, where the body of believers were more network-minded, fostered community, and seemed to be more outreach-oriented.

Realizing these important distinctions only reinforced my excitement for the direction our leadership is taking us in 2018! Because while fellowship, self-help, and community all help believers grow in communion with Christ, these things cannot be the only mission of a Christ-minded church. The apostles and community of believers mentored the unsaved and walked through life with them. The church had a major impact on society and culture, and the Gospel spread like wildfire.

What will this more evangelistic, Gospel-spreading mentorship look like? I cannot say for sure. This is different than anything I have seen implemented in my years as a follower of Jesus Christ. I know that in the 1800s it was not uncommon for a church building to be the center of the community in many ways, including hosting schools and courthouses. While I am not suggesting we go back there, I am curious what it would look like for Elim to become such a prominent place of community again, a place where we the believers physically invite others to join in the life-altering power of the Gospel! And that we as believers could somehow regain that Christ-focused impact for good even on public institutions such as schools and courthouses. Let us not only be hearers of the Word, but also doers of the Word.

Being an oasis of renewal in our community can only begin with the gathering of the community. We must break down our walls of insecurity and fear and truly be intentional fishers of men.

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Chaos in America: Have We Prayed for Justice Like our Lives Depend on It?

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By Larry Short, Community Ministry Director

I was watching the news this morning as Melissa Falkowski, an English and journalism teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, was being interviewed about her experience protecting her students in the midst of the horrific school shooting yesterday morning. At one point in the interview, as I recall, she said something that reached down deep inside of me:

“I’ve seen this on TV, we all have, shooting after shooting, and there’s always the same thing that is said, you know: ‘It’s not the time to talk about gun control . . . it’s time to pray for the families.’ And I just think that that hasn’t gotten us anywhere. And now here we are. We’re the latest statistic on school violence. And as a society, as Americans, we’re failing our children. We’re not keeping them safe. Congress is failing us. The government is failing us. And something has to be done.”

Obviously, it’s been a depressing 24 hours, and we can (and probably will) debate the role that guns, or the media, or school policies, or whatever have played in these national tragedies. But what struck me, of course, is the comment that “We’ve prayed, and it obviously hasn’t gotten us anywhere.” And she’s right about the fact that school violence is getting worse and worse.

I ask myself, Is she right when she asserts that we’ve prayed? I’m not so sure.

And I’m speaking for myself here. Have I prayed when I’ve heard about school shootings? Did I pray for myself and my students when I was a tutor last year at Emerald Ridge High School and Glacier View Junior High? Do I pray each morning when I send my wife off to her job as a school nurse at elementary schools in downtown Puyallup? Do I pray for my precious granddaughter as she spends her days in her first-grade class in Pennsylvania?

The answer is yes, I’ve prayed. Some. But have I really gotten down on my knees, consistently, persistently, and begged the One I call Lord and King to do something to stop the downward slide of our country into moral oblivion and suicidal hopelessness that I think each of us truly believes (guns or no) is really at the root of all this chaos and violence?

Have I wrestled with Him on this issue, and listened for His voice? If He were to say, “What if I wanted YOU to be a part of the solution?” have I responded like the prophet of old: “Here I am, Lord. Send me!”

I confess that I haven’t done THAT. Have you?

In Luke 18, Jesus shares a profound parable about a widow who seeks justice with an all-powerful but “unjust” judge who could grant it, but isn’t inclined to. After much persistence, he finally relents. And Jesus concludes, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Some parables are a little difficult to figure out. But the meaning of this one is crystal clear, and it is a huge indictment on my heart and may be on yours as well. He assures us that His Father is wholly unlike that unjust judge. Instead, He is EAGER to grant justice, and quickly! But the question is, Are we serious about asking Him for it? Have we persisted “day and night”? Have we prayed like our lives depend on it?

I’m starting to believe that my life depends on it. How about you?

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You can always read more on Larry’s blogs:

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