Luke 14:12-24
1. A picture
2. A definition
“Radically ordinary hospitality is using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God. It brings glory to God, serves others and lives out the gospel in word and deed.”
-Rosaria Butterfield
3. Basic requirements
1) We live under the authority of God and the church.
2) We must work hard to know who our neighbors are and how they struggle.
4. Five things to remember...
1) Hospitality is an expression of reciprocity.
2) Must distinguish between hospitality and entertaining.
"Entertaining focuses attention on self. Hospitality focuses attention on others. Hospitality involves setting a table that makes everyone feel comfortable. It chooses a menu that allows face time with guests instead of being chained to the stovetop. It picks up the house to make things pleasant, but doesn’t feel the need to conceal evidences of everyday life. It sometimes sits down to dinner with flour in its hair. It allows the gathering to be shaped by the quality of the conversation rather than the cuisine. Hospitality shows interest in the thoughts, feelings, pursuits, and preferences of its guests. It is good at asking questions and listening intently to answers. Entertaining is always thinking about the next course. Hospitality burns the rolls because it was listening to a story. Entertaining obsesses over what went wrong. Hospitality savors what was shared."
-Jen Wilkin
3) Hospitality is a culturally acceptable form of evangelism.
"God saved me through hospitality. To be more precise, God used hospitality crucially in his pursuit of my soul. After years of a debate between my agnosticism and my longing for God—a debate that had taken place in conference halls and libraries and classrooms, in bedrooms and liquor stores and clubs—closing arguments took place in an unexpected location: a Christian family’s home. A pastor and his wife, friends of my parents, invited me into their home to stay. During the mornings, I met with the pastor and aired my grievances with God and Christianity. The Bible passages and commentary he presented to me were vital to what God did in my heart in those weeks. But just as vital was the evidence his wife brought to the debate. Her evidence was often wordless: space made in her afternoon to drink tea with me or take a walk; clean sheets in a bedroom I shared with one of her own daughters; a cultivated calm in a home full of children and teens; a hug given freely with a peck on the cheek. The words were necessary. But the hospitality gave the words context and weight.
-Tilly Dillehay
4) Hospitality is a requirement for leadership in the church.
“Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must mange his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”
-1 Timothy 3:2-7
5) Hospitality turns your home into a hospital/incubator.
1. A picture
2. A definition
“Radically ordinary hospitality is using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God. It brings glory to God, serves others and lives out the gospel in word and deed.”
-Rosaria Butterfield
3. Basic requirements
1) We live under the authority of God and the church.
2) We must work hard to know who our neighbors are and how they struggle.
4. Five things to remember...
1) Hospitality is an expression of reciprocity.
2) Must distinguish between hospitality and entertaining.
"Entertaining focuses attention on self. Hospitality focuses attention on others. Hospitality involves setting a table that makes everyone feel comfortable. It chooses a menu that allows face time with guests instead of being chained to the stovetop. It picks up the house to make things pleasant, but doesn’t feel the need to conceal evidences of everyday life. It sometimes sits down to dinner with flour in its hair. It allows the gathering to be shaped by the quality of the conversation rather than the cuisine. Hospitality shows interest in the thoughts, feelings, pursuits, and preferences of its guests. It is good at asking questions and listening intently to answers. Entertaining is always thinking about the next course. Hospitality burns the rolls because it was listening to a story. Entertaining obsesses over what went wrong. Hospitality savors what was shared."
-Jen Wilkin
3) Hospitality is a culturally acceptable form of evangelism.
"God saved me through hospitality. To be more precise, God used hospitality crucially in his pursuit of my soul. After years of a debate between my agnosticism and my longing for God—a debate that had taken place in conference halls and libraries and classrooms, in bedrooms and liquor stores and clubs—closing arguments took place in an unexpected location: a Christian family’s home. A pastor and his wife, friends of my parents, invited me into their home to stay. During the mornings, I met with the pastor and aired my grievances with God and Christianity. The Bible passages and commentary he presented to me were vital to what God did in my heart in those weeks. But just as vital was the evidence his wife brought to the debate. Her evidence was often wordless: space made in her afternoon to drink tea with me or take a walk; clean sheets in a bedroom I shared with one of her own daughters; a cultivated calm in a home full of children and teens; a hug given freely with a peck on the cheek. The words were necessary. But the hospitality gave the words context and weight.
-Tilly Dillehay
4) Hospitality is a requirement for leadership in the church.
“Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must mange his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”
-1 Timothy 3:2-7
5) Hospitality turns your home into a hospital/incubator.