Practise hospitality!

“Please bear in mind that there are quite a few non-Christians here this morning” is something I hear increasingly as I preach around the country in my work for Solas. Pastors wisely want the visiting preacher not just to know the Bible text to preach on, but to make sure that the sermon is suitable for people who are not there to be discipled in the faith, but who are still exploring what the gospel actually is.

Being “seeker-friendly” is a phrase which has fallen into disrepute, conjuring up unhelpful images of stage lights, and reverent worship being displaced by entertainment. What might be a better phrase for seeking to welcome and share Christ with the curious who are turning up at churches, and what might it involve? Perhaps the Biblical phrase “practise hospitality” is closer to what we need.

We wouldn’t invite people into our homes and just assume they knew whether food was included in the invitation, or not tell them what time to arrive, or whether their children were welcome too. We certainly wouldn’t rudely ignore anyone who arrived in our homes! We’d instinctively make it as easy for the guests as we could. Yet this isn’t always the case at church.

Those of us who preach and lead worship have a role to play here. While it would be crass to force some kind of “altar call” response onto the end of every sermon regardless of the text, we do need to frame every sermon around the gospel. A sermon about marriage or work, for example, could be misunderstood through the lens of goodperson legalism by someone whose starting assumption is not the gospel of grace. It’s not enough to just assume a lack of knowledge of Bible stories, or to guide people to the right page number, if we don’t also find out and address people’s interpretive assumptions too.

Those of us in the congregation also have a vital role to play. One of the overlooked benefits of being involved in a mid-week fellowship group is that we can give ourselves fully to outsiders who come in on Sundays. If we are living truly integrated lives with other believers already, then outsiders can be our Sunday focus. A lot of churches offer a welcome from someone wearing a “welcome team” lanyard – but genuine interest from people who aren’t on a rota is far more significant.

For the first two centuries the predominant context for the church’s worship life, breaking of bread and sharing of meals was people’s homes. Surely then the hospitality envisaged in Scripture needs to go well beyond our church premises and involve our homes too. “A few folks are coming to our house for lunch, would you like to join us?” should be what every visitor to our churches hears. The meal table is the ideal place for conversation, asking people what they thought of the message, and giving them a welcome place for their questions. The very fact that we do so around a generous table of welcome means that we not only verbalise the gospel, but we demonstrate it too. “Hospitality enacts the gospel”, as Tim Chester puts it.

1 Corinthians 14v24-26 is an extraordinary text, primarily about tongues and prophecy in the first-century Corinthian church. What is often missed is Paul’s assumption that they should take into account the needs of the outsider – even in the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. His rationale for the regulation of their spiritual gifts is whether an outsider who wanders in will understand and come under conviction! That’s radical spiritual hospitality, consistent with the shepherd who leaves the 99 in the flock to rescue one lone straggler.

My observation as I travel the country is that growing churches are doing this. My confession is that I don’t always do it myself, and need to be far more intentional about practising outward-focused hospitality, both when preaching and in my home.