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Hospitality
Hospitality
To entertain some people
all you have to do is listen.
Hospitality
A seminary student drove
about thirty miles to church on Sunday mornings and he would frequently pick up
hitchhikers. One day he picked up a young man who noticed that he was wearing a
suit and asked if he could go to church with him. The student said
“Of course
you can.”
The
stranger came to church and afterward was invited over to one of the members’
home for lunch and fellowship. While there
he received a hot bath
some clean
clothes
and a hot meal. In conversation with the youth
his hosts found that
he was a Christian
but he had been out of fellowship with the Lord. His home
was in another state and he was just passing through on his way back. Later in
the evening
they bought him a bus ticket and sent him on his way.
A week later
the seminary student received a
letter from the hitchhiker. Enclosed with the letter was a newspaper clipping
with head lines reading
“Man turns himself in for murder.” This young man had
killed a teenage boy in an attempted robbery and had been running away from the
law for some time. But the kindness and hospitality of Christians had convicted
him. He wanted to be in fellowship with God
and he knew he needed to do the right
thing about his crime.
Little
did those Christians know that by their faithfulness to show hospitality they
had influenced a man to do what was tight in God’s eyes and thereby help
restore him to fellowship with his Lord.
Hospitality
and Churches
Singer John Charles Thomas
at age sixty-six wrote to syndicated columnist Abigail Wan Buren:
“I am
presently completing the second year of a three-year survey on the hospitality
or lack of it in churches. To date
of the 195 churches I have visited
I was
spoken to in only one by someone other than an official greeter-and that was to
ask me to move my feet.”--《Christianity Today》
Hospitality
and Entertaining
The following
differentiation between “hospitality” and “entertaining” was made by Karen
Mains in Open Heart
Open Home (Elgin
Ill.: Cook
1976):
Entertaining
says
“I want to impress you with my home
my clever decorating
my cooking.”
Hospitality
seeking to minister
says
“This home is a gift from my Master. I
use it as He desires.” Hospitality aims to serve.
Entertaining
puts things before people. “As soon as I get the house finished
the living
room decorated
my housecleaning done-then I will start inviting people.
Hospitality puts people first. “No furniture-we’ll eat on the floor!” “The
decorating may never get done-you come anyway.” “The house is a mess-but you
are friends-come home with us.”
Entertaining
subtly declares
“This home is mine
an expression of my personality. Look
please
and admire.” Hospitality whispers
“What is mine is yours.”
Hospitality
and Missions
A Chicago businessman
called his wife to get her okay for him to bring home a visiting foreigner as a
guest for dinner that night. At the time
the wife had three children in school
and one preschooler
so there were plenty of important things to do besides
entertaining strangers. But she consented and the meal came off without a
hitch. The foreigner
an important Spanish official
never forgot that meal.
Years
later
some friends of that family went to Spain as missionaries. Their work
was brought to a standstill
however
by government regulations. When the
Spanish official got word that the missionaries were friends of that hospitable
Some folks make you
feel at home. Others make you wish you were. ── Arnold
H. Glasow.
Treat your guest as
a guest for two days; on the third day
give him a hoe. ── Swahili proverb.