One Sunday morning, some years ago, as my son Neil and I were returning to New Orleans from visiting my mom in north Alabama, I said, “Let’s try to make church at Eutaw. That’s where Grandpa Henderson grew up.”
As we approached the church, I told Neil, “If anyone other than the pastor invites us to lunch, we’ll say ‘no.’ But if he does, I’d like to do it.”
Anyone who knows me knows my love for pastors. I’m always glad to meet a brother laboring in the Lord’s work.
We knew no one at that church. But I figured that my son had distant relatives in the congregation, for one thing, and for the other, I know small-town Southern hospitality.
We had lunch with Pastor Rick Williams that day. He assured us his wife had made a great lasagna and salad, and that she and her mother and their adult daughter were attending a function at a nearby town immediately after church. She had even suggested that he invite us to lunch.
Hospitality. It’s a great concept, particularly if you are away from home and on the road.
In the old days, hospitality was an essential of life. In a time when and in countries where few hotels and restaurants existed, you depended on the kindness of strangers.
Pastor Adrian Rogers was preaching at our church. At one point, he said, “Joe, do you ever get up to Memphis?” I said, “Once in a while.” He said, “Well, my friend, when you come to Memphis, don’t ever worry about a place to stay or a place to eat.”
Long pause.
“We have some of the finest restaurants and hotels you’ve ever seen.”
I laughed. A great line. But not what I was expecting.
These days God’s people are no longer dependent on people opening their homes to strangers as in the old days.
That’s good. And yet we’ve probably lost something.
God said to Israel, “An alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34).
In the New Testament, the word translated “hospitality” is philoxenia, literally “love of strangers.”
Our English word “hospitality” is uncomfortably close to “hospital” for good reason: they go back to the same parent, the Latin hospitalis, originally a place of rest and entertainment. Other offspring of this parent are “host,” the one extending this welcome treatment, and “hostage,” which formerly meant entertainment. “Hospice” and “hostels” retain some of the original meaning of the Latin word.
Missionaries tell us the concept of hospitality is alive and well in many countries of the world, and constitutes a vital element in their ministry.
In the First Century world, when the few inns that existed were unsafe, unclean, and unwholesome, Christians depended on people of good character to open their homes to them.
Our Lord said to the disciples, “Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or that town” (Matthew 10:11-14).
With those words, we are given a tiny peep-hole into the culture of that time.
Every child knows of the time Jesus entered Jericho, spotted a diminutive tax collector in the sycamore tree where he had climbed to get above the crowd, and said, “Zaccheus, come down. For today, I must abide at your house” (Luke 19:5).
The next verse says, “So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.”
At judgment, Jesus said, when “the Son of Man,” referring to Himself, “sits on the throne in heavenly glory,” He would divide the peoples of the earth into the sheep and the goats, the righteous and the unrighteous. To the righteous, He would say,
“Come you blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in; I needed clothes and you clothed me; I was sick and you looked after me; I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:34-36).
Their spiritual faith was evidenced by their hospitality.
To the unrighteous, Jesus says, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, into a place prepared for the devil and his angels, For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.” And so forth.
He faults them for their inhospitality.
It’s not that the presence or absence of this quality will determine our eternal destiny so much as will tell the truth about our relationship with Jesus Christ.
This one quality–hospitality–tells the tale.
Scary thought, isn’t it?
It’s all through the New Testament.
In describing the ideal pastor to Timothy, the Apostle Paul said, “He must be temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable…” (I Timothy 3:2).
In his blue-print of relationships within the congregation, Paul instructs believers to “share with God’s people who are in need; practice hospitality” (Romans 12:13).
The Apostle Peter instructs, “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” (I Peter 4:9).
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” the writer of Hebrews says, “for by so doing some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). The next verse says, “Remember those in prison, as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”
In his brief Third Epistle, the Apostle John shows us how it works: “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans.”
John continued, “We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth” (III John 5-8).
Then, the Beloved Apostle faults the leader of that church for his failure in this very matter. “Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church” (III John 9-10).
Bible students will recall Nabal whose hard heart would not allow him to show hospitality to David and his men. He paid for that omission dearly–with both his life and his wife!–and left us a lesson forever. (I Samuel 25)
In fact, while we’re on the subject of inhospitable people, Ezekiel quotes the Lord God as saying this was actually the underlying sin of Sodom. “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it” (Ezekiel 16:49-50).
The Lord clearly puts a greater prize on graciousness to the needy and a warm welcome to strangers than we do. I’m suggesting we rethink the matter.
Churches must be hospitality centers. Christians are expected by our Lord to be practitioners of this art.
All it is, is loving our neighbor as ourselves, which Jesus identified not only as the Second Greatest Commandment, but a whole lot like the First.
When we lived in New Orleans, I received an email from a pastor’s wife in a nearby state. A friend was coming to a New Orleans institution for a two-month study and needed a place to live. If possible, it should be in the vicinity of that institution and be inexpensive.
I forwarded the message to my daughter-in-law Julie, the pastor’s administrative assistant at our church. The next day she told me what she had done with it. “I passed it along to Paula Dryden.”
Why did that surprise me? This lady has such a gift for hospitality and in fact, a fairly long history of it.
When I pastored this church, Kenner’s First Baptist Church, on three occasions we were asked to host family members of foreign children coming to New Orleans area hospitals for life-saving surgery. Such a request was no slight thing. It involved a home for the mother and her interpreter for two months, meals, and transportation to and from the hospital every day.
Paula became a key player the first time we did this, and one of the leaders thereafter. Thankfully, our church had several such gracious men and women, ready to open their homes and rearrange their lives as the Lord leads.
Pastors would give their right arm to have such members in their congregations. Ideally, these precious saints will not try to do it all themselves but will involve as many church members as it takes to do the job. The blessings get spread around and Christians develop the art and gift of hospitality.
I’ve often told of Lee and Dottie Andrews, precious church members who made a practice of seeking out strangers in our church on Sundays to invite them to lunch at the local cafeteria. Many were newcomers to town and church-hunting. Many of those the Andrews took to lunch ended up joining our church.
People come to your church all the time seeking help–for groceries, help with the light bill, school supplies for their children, even clothing. How you treat them says volumes about your relationship with Jesus.
I hope you caught that. It says volumes, not just about your love for your neighbors, but about your relationship with the Lord Jesus Himself, the One who commanded us to do this.
Sadly, I have sometimes found among church staffs a callousness regarding those who walk in and ask the church for help. I recall one staff member in particular. “They’re leeches,” he would say. “They go from church to church, getting all they can. I’m in favor of showing them the road. Let’s not enable them.”
Being the new pastor of that church, I already knew we were going to change the culture of hospitality in that congregation, so I did not feel the need to clobber him for his unworthy attitude. Rather, I said, “Some probably are that way. But you and I are under instructions. Jesus said, ‘Give to whoever asks from you’ (Luke 6:30).”
He did not say we have to give them ALL they ask for or even WHAT they asked for. But we need to give them something.
And thereafter we did.
Better to err on the side of generosity than hard-heartedness. Better that we give to some who are unethical than neglect one who is truly in need.
The two churches I served longest, the First Baptist Churches of Columbus, Mississippi, and Kenner, Louisiana, I’m happy to report, continued to minister to the needy for many years. Hospitality became an essential part of who they were.
I’m remembering Salem Baptist Church in Brundidge, Alabama, where my longtime friend Bobby Hood served before his retirement. That church owns an old home next door, which the members have furnished with an incredible array of antiques. Wedding receptions are held in the front rooms, and in the back, there are living quarters for visiting church guests.
The kitchen had been stocked with every kind of breakfast food, snacks, and soups I might possibly need while at Salem. The fridge held water, milk, and juices. The note on a green plant said this was all from “The Sunshine Team.”
Sunshine Team. I love it.
Every church needs people devoted to sunshine.
Let some sunshiners stand outside the door on Sunday mornings to greet worshipers with a warm smile and hand them a bulletin. Why outside the door? To let first-timers know this is the correct entrance, we’re open for business, and we are eager to welcome you.
Have you ever walked up to a church and pulled at the door only to find it locked? It’s not a good feeling.
In my last church–after I had learned that strangers were intimidated by the vast array of doors around our huge sanctuary and did not know which was the main entrance–we painted “Entrance” above a couple of the doors and stationed ushers outside.
Not everyone was pleased with the change in the decor, but we did not change.
Some churches put greeters in parking lots. If you do this, it’s a good idea to give them some kind of identifiable clothing and badge so visitors will know they are part of the team. For larger churches especially, greeters in the parking lot can be a great help.
In bad weather, a faithful church will have a battery of men equipped with large umbrellas ready to help people from their cars into the church. If you’ve ever arrived for worship with small children in a heavy rain, you appreciate the help. And even if you didn’t need it, didn’t it make you feel good to see those men on the job?
“Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the races of men go by;
They are good, they are bad,
They are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish–so am I;
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.”
(From the poet Sam Walter Foss)