Developing a Ministry of Hospitality

Let the love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to stranger, for by his some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Hebrews 13:1-2

Whenever I teach the “Church At War” revitalization discipleship module to pastors, I always discuss that, in my opinion, one of the greatest ministries which pastors, leaders, and members can do to help their churches to grow is to practice hospitality. While it is certainly a blessing to open up our homes and our lives to other believers, the passage above calls us to show hospitality to strangers.  In that culture, “strangers” would most like not been members of their local churches.  They may well have been non-believers who had not yet embraced Jesus as Lord and Savior.

My recommendation to any believer who wishes to help their church grow in outreach, in ministry, in Kingdom fruitfulness, should prayerfully seek to open up your lives to show hospitality to those outside the Kingdom.  Some orbits of hospitality might include the following:

Open up your home

• invite strangers and their families over to supper
• make a room in your home temporarily available to someone in need of a roof over the head
• consider opening up our bedrooms long-term to student interns, missionaries, others

Open up your assets

• loan out your nice van to a stranger family for a family vacation
• loan out your truck to someone in need of a truck for a work or recreational project
• loan out your second home at the lake, the beach, the mountains to someone to take their family of vacation

Open up you lives

• give of your time, finances, and other steward matters to make room to mentor, to counsel, to encourage, or to influence someone outside the orbit of our local church.

On that note, Jaime and I are eager to again open up our homes to our pastors and to our church staff members and their spouses to “break bread” together.  We will have a little different format than the suppers which we hosted last year.  Hopefully, we can find some nice evenings when we can sit out on the newly covered back deck just to share what the Lord is doing with and for us.  Of course, this will need to wait until probably September or whenever everyone gets comfortable to such intimate outings.