Church hospitality

Hospitality is a word that comes from a Latin word for "guest". A Christian that worships God does so in part by practicing hospitality (see prior post). But do we do a good job?

In the movie Patch Adams, Patch obtains a home and uses it to practice hospitality to the sick and ailing. This gives insight on why the same root word for hospitality gives us the word for hospital. The powers that be in Patch's world accuse Patch of practicing medicine without a license, but his defense is he is just practicing old fashion hospitality, helping the others as they help him.

Jesus Christ said he came to heal the broken-hearted (a poor translation giving the modern meaning - perhaps better to say "wounded at their core"). The author of Luke thinks this so important that Jesus saying that is a part of Jesus' first recorded statements in his ministry. So sad that this is so little a part of church life.

In the early years, the meetings of the disciples were for the disciples. Today, many churches practice "evangelism" by making the meetings the place they encourage the membership to invite people to. If that is the case, shouldn't the meetings be a place of ministry, as Jesus modeled, rather than a "worship service"? Luke describes the purpose of Jesus ministry by opening with the quote from Isaiah 61 about freedom and healing. But most services I've seen are about "get in, sit down, keep quiet, sing along if you want". It's not a very hospitable atmosphere.

To model Jesus, we need to concern ourselves more with healing and freedom. Jesus and the apostles said precious little about "worship" of God, but much about continuing the mission of Jesus. He came to seek and save what was lost (not the lost, but what was lost). It's about life, healing, and freedom. If we practiced and pursued that, I believe in this day and age, we'd have no need to spend an extra dime on "evangelism". More to come on that latter point ...