Sept. 13, 2010 issue
Offer hospitality
By Simon Schrock Catlett, Va.The Aug. 16 editorial, “Our Welcome Needs Work,” is a good reminder to welcome strangers into our services. It also identifies weak spots where strangers are not welcomed, or even ignored. I was a bit surprised that the New Testament method of welcoming strangers was not mentioned. It is called hospitality.
The Apostle Paul reminds us to be “given to hospitality.” Leaders must be “lovers of hospitality,” Peter declared. “Use hospitality one to another without grudging” (1 Peter 4:9). Heb. 13:2 gives a bold command: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.”
More people are won to Christ through friendship and hospitality than through preaching. What better way is there to welcome strangers than to invite them to Sunday dinner? Mennonites are famous for good cooking. Maybe we would rather market our gift in cookbooks and profit in the process. However, letting strangers taste firsthand would reach the heart.
Maybe it is time to resurrect the 1978 edition of Friendship Evangelism by Art McPhee to stir our vision. Or a more recent book, The Power of Hospitality, in which Chuck and Kathie Crismier say: “Most people who accept an invitation are not coming to visit your home; they are looking for a relationship.”
Visitors in a Mennonite church should have to make a decision which dinner invitation to accept instead of wondering where to find the closest restaurant.
Some of the fondest memories of friendships that my wife and I enjoy came around our dinner table. There we learned to know strangers, persons from other countries and neighbors who were grateful to get acquainted.
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