(Listen to the Audio sermon)
We lost, and the St Mary’s contingent began the long trip back. But just outside of Glenville, we spotted a couple of friends pulled off the road. The guy’s electrical system was failing – he had no headlights on a cold, rainy/snowy March night. So we came up with a plan. Another friend drove slowly ahead of him, and we followed, manually directing the spotlight ahead of him as we turned right…then left…then right…then left for hours until we got him back to St. Marys, while another couple hundred fans followed us slowly up the road. It was how the community helped each other out, especially in my Dad’s generation. It was Christian hospitality. I wish I could say that I’ve always experienced such hospitality…
Abraham gives us an example of excellent hospitality in our Genesis reading today. Did you notice these points when he saw three men standing near his tent? “When he saw them, he RAN …to meet them and bowed to the ground.” He didn’t wait for them to approach him, for that would have implied he was superior to them. Instead, he RAN to them and greeted them with great respect – in his case, by bowing. We might say, “Welcome, we’re so glad you could come!”
And then he brought them water, had them rest in the shade under the tree, had Sarah make some bread, and himself found a “tender, young calf” – choice veal – which he had one of his servants prepare. Then he took the men curds – or butter – and milk, the calf, and then he “served” them – more literally, he “stood by” while they ate.
Abraham was quick to welcome his guests. He worked very hard to make his guests comfortable and welcome. He gave them the best he had – if we dropped by Abraham’s house today, he would invite us in, not for sandwiches, but for rib-eyes. He didn’t just give the water, but milk, not just milk and veal, but butter also – at a time when butter had to be churned. And now, for the kicker – when Abraham asked Sarah to take three measures of flour, he was asking her to take over 20 quarts of flour to make this bread – enough not only for today, but to take with them!
And these three men turned out to be the LORD and two angels.
But unless we get the idea that Christian hospitality should only be shown to people who could be angels, or otherwise help us, listen to what Jesus has to say to his host at a dinner, as Luke tells us:
“When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Jesus said to invite those who need the food rather than inviting those who you need. Don’t look at a dinner as a business deal, but as a command from God who will repay you for your kindness.
We all know that Christ tells us to love our neighbors. Well, folks, the first, necessary condition of a growing church is that we are hospitable to all people. But over the years, we’ve forgotten what it means to be hospitable because we have gotten so used to going out to a restaurant for restaurant hospitality, we’ve forgotten how to be hospitable ourselves. When was the last time you invited people who were not family over to your house for dinner?
Being hospitable means taking the essence of the golden rule and applying it to people we haven’t yet met. “Treat others the way you would like to be treated!”
But it isn’t easy for us, because to be hospitable, we have to become vulnerable. Think about it. Instead of Abraham calling his wife and servants to prepare food and drink for his visitors, he could have just as easily called his servants to gather weapons and chased away his visitors. After all, there were bandits in the countryside in those days.
But Abraham was confident. He knew that relationships are more important than things. Abraham knew that his stuff wasn’t as important as making friends. And so he became vulnerable, helping these new strangers become new friends by sharing valuable food and drink. He wasn’t worried about his stuff – he wanted to make new friends.
Folks, I could tell you multiple stories of churches that I’ve seen that had decided that their stuff was far more important than making friends, that had given into fear of the stranger instead of fellowship of the friend-to-be. I could tell you multiple stories of churches that had become so inwardly focused on maintaining the church and their own comforts, their own safety, that they had forgotten how to be hospitable to visitors.
And so I'll tell you of a couple of these stories...
One day, while Saundra and I were living in another state, we decided that it was time to try out a different church. We had moved with our business about 40 minutes from our old church, and it was just getting too difficult to get all four kids together, dress them, load them into the van and drive through traffic to our old church. Plus, our daughter was getting old enough for the youth group – and over a third of the youth group girls were pregnant in high school. So we decided it was time for a new church.
We had seen a cute little church about 5 to 10 minutes from our home and stopped by the parking lot on Saturday evening, where we found a sign that told us that the Sunday school was at 9:30 and the main service was at 10:30. So we went home, and the next morning we dressed our children and ourselves in “visiting clothes”. Since this was in back in the 90’s and we were visiting a Baptist church in the south, that meant I wore a sports coat, Saundra and the girls wore dresses, and the boys wore dress shirts and pants. I think Ian may have even worn a tie.
Well, we were the second car in the parking lot, arriving about 9:15. We walked in and were greeted by…silence. As we found our way to the sanctuary, we noticed a man working on a karaoke system up front. After a couple of minutes, he waved once and went back to what he was working on. We found a place to sit, about the second row from the back, on the left side. We admired the décor, which appeared to be just as it had been when installed in 1962. The children squirmed. I think we heard crickets... We waited.
At about 9:28, about 10 people came in. They all sat on the right side. Saundra and I would have been the youth group at this point by about ten or fifteen years. One older woman said "hello" and brought us bulletins and the Sunday School quarterly. She also offered to take our two youngest to another room for their Sunday School, which we agreed to.
Sunday School began.
A man read the lesson. I don’t mean he explained the lesson. He READ the lesson – poorly – from the Sunday School quarterly. I remember it was about the Kings of Judah. At one point he did make a comment – he noted that the Bible said that one king was about twelve years old when he took over as king, but he didn’t think that was right – and besides, his Bible, which had the years BC printed at the top of each page, implied that the kid might have been twenty years old or so because there was a twenty year gap in those years printed at the top of that Bible.
Saundra said I looked like Bill the Cat from the Bloom County comic strip as I tried to keep my mouth shut.
Well, the hour ended, that torture was over, our kids were brought back to us, and another five or ten people came in. We noticed that all except one family sat on the right side with everyone else. That family of four sat in front of us.
The main service began.
After a prayer and a song from the karaoke machine, the man who had been fixing the karaoke machine earlier – who turned out to be the pastor – began to have a business meeting about the roof repairs, which took 20 minutes to resolve. In the middle of this, we noticed the ten year old from the family in front of us got up and went somewhere and then came back.
Finally, after determining that they could afford about $6000 to spend on the roof - I remember the figure clearly because they took so long to get to it - and determining that one of the trustees would get estimates, the service continued. I think there was another song, and then a few more minutes while cancers and heart attacks and jobs of people we had never met were discussed, then a pastoral prayer. It was during the prayer that the family in front of us began to argue, punctuating the argument with slaps to the kids.
Finally, there was a sermon. Now, I have listened to many different types of sermons. Some tell a story, some are 5 bullet points and a summary, some cover a topic, some work their way through scripture. This sermon was none of the above. Following it was sort of like tracing a piece of spaghetti in a plate piled high or following a strand of Christmas lights that your five-year-old put in the box last year.
Somewhere in the middle of the sermon, though, I understood where the ten year old kid had disappeared to, for we began to realize why everyone was sitting on the right side of the church. It seems the air was flowing down the left side of the church past us from the back area – the area where the restroom was. The restroom that apparently had no ventilation to the outside. A porta-potty would have smelled better.
Saundra said my Bill-the-Cat impression was coming back. I have no idea what the point of the sermon was. I was trying to keep from gagging.
Finally, it was over, an invitation to the altar was given – no one went – a song was sung, and the service was over.
The older woman who had greeted us talked to Saundra for a minute, and we made our exit, following everyone else who had rushed for the doors.
The next week, we gave them a second chance, this time skipping Sunday School. At least there wasn’t a business meeting – and this time we sat on the right side. But there just didn’t seem to be any point in the service – no one seemed to be friends with each other in the church, the teaching was poor, and no one welcomed us since the older woman wasn’t there that week. They might want me to mention the name of their church…
So we tried a different church, a fast growing church nearby that was building an addition onto the main building. The parking lot was almost full.
Here, we had a bit of problem since we arrived after the first service had begun, about half way before the second service. But which entrance to go to, since there were no signs? I said in my best Dad voice – “This way” and we promptly entered into a lobby behind the sanctuary platform, with no way to sneak around and come into the sanctuary from the rear. We wandered for a couple of minutes, finally realizing where we were and sat down on a bench. A couple of people came by, too fast and too busy to flag down. Eventually, the girls found a restroom. Meanwhile, Saundra and I began to notice that we could see an occasional teenager walking past – and they were dressed to kill. The guys were wearing colored dress shirts with ties, the girls were wearing short skirts that looked like they were headed out for Saturday evening on the town. We looked at each other and said, “This is what we wanted to avoid.” So we packed up and drove down the road. I’ve forgotten the name of their church…
A couple miles down the road was another church. We knew a bit about this other church. The owners of the building our company was renting attended it. They had invited us to the church, and one of the retired pastors had actually stopped by when he was talking to one of the other companies in the building just to meet us. We’d gone there for a Wednesday evening dinner or two.
When we had showed up there at that Wednesday evening dinner, 18 people had introduced themselves to us – and were doing the same to the other first time visitors. Different groups took turns preparing and serving Wednesday dinners, which cost a buck or two per person. A couple of the elders of the church had helped us get our kids into the right rooms for Wednesday evening, led Saundra to a study group and me to the choir.
And the same thing happened on Sunday morning. We were introduced all around, especially to people who lived close to us and were parents with kids. There were wonderfully clean hallways, comfortable study rooms, and restrooms. The carpet was new, the paint was kept up and the décor looked like the latest issues of Southern Living.
The Sunday School teacher was an intense man about our age who was well-prepared. He dropped by our office that week to check on us. There was also a baptism that Sunday morning – and we found later there were baptisms about twice a month. Is it any wonder that this church of about 800 people was growing about 150 people a year?
By the way, it was called Calvary Christian Church. We stayed there until we moved to Ohio.
Notice the differences in hospitality between the three churches.
Folks, I could tell you multiple stories of churches that I’ve seen that had decided that their stuff was far more important than making friends, that had given into fear of the stranger instead of fellowship of the friend-to-be.
You know how Jesus told his disciples that they would become fishers of men? I’ve seen many churches that decided they didn’t want any of these men-fish in the boat unless they’d already been cleaned and fillet. And these churches were almost always tiny churches that had been in decline for thirty years. They had become so puffed up about who they were, about how holy they were, about how much better they were than the people who lived just down the block from their churches, that they didn’t want anyone who needed them – they only wanted good, clean, perfect Christians in their churches. Which may explain why every year there were less people in their churches than the previous year.
Christians! This is a fine line we walk when we have guests. On the one hand, we know we have what they need – for we have all received the grace and forgiveness and love that comes with Jesus Christ which has lifted us out of despair, lifted us out of the mud, lifted us out of the ditch that leads to destruction. We have been truly blessed and we want to bless others by sharing God's love!
But we must also remain humble, like Abraham did, treating our guests, our visiting neighbors as better than ourselves, for nobody wants to be looked down upon. Condescension is such an easy sin to acquire once we've received God's love!
At one church, I noticed that nobody who lived within two blocks of the church attended the church. It might be because of the "no parking except for church" sign. Of course, that church loved to have fellowship meals on a regular basis – but just for church members and those that were former church members, of which there was a very long list. So I finally convinced the church to have a community meal instead of a fellowship meal. And…they actually invited their sister church on the charge…and people came! But they didn’t invite anyone from the neighborhood. “Oh well, we’ll fix that next time,” I thought.
So it comes time for the meal and the people of the church brought in the ham and chicken and baked beans and corn and desserts and green beans and meatballs. And it looks like it’s going to be a wonderful meal. And then, the people of the church set up a table with all the food on it and they stand on one side with the spoons and serving forks and they carefully dole out the food to their guests as they come through the line, like cooks in the middle school cafeteria feeding the kids. And when they were finished serving, they took their plates and served themselves and then they all sat down together at a different table from their guests!
AAGH!
They had missed the whole point! For you see, they made two major mistakes:
First, they treated their guests like they were children, not to be trusted with their food! They treated them like soup kitchen clients, like they were afraid some guest might actually eat two chicken wings or have a double helping of green beans. They did not treat them like neighbors in a community that they all lived in!
And the second mistake was they didn’t sit and eat with their guests. The whole purpose of a community meal is to make friends, to get to know each other, to show that we are friendly and have faults just like our neighbors. We bond when we eat together – but have you noticed that we rarely bond with the people at the table across the room in the restaurant?
First of all, I know that in the past, some churches, including this church, had a policy of never having fundraisers. Instead, all our funds were raised internally. I agree with that policy and applaud that policy. But this is not a fundraiser.
You see, this is a community dinner. It is not a "community outreach dinner". We considered making it free, but our neighbors don’t want or need charity from us. We’ve found that people don’t want to go to free community dinners, because it makes them feel like they are helpless, they feel ashamed, they are children that are being taken care of. They don't want to feel like they are a project, being "reached out" to. They want to be welcomed into the community that we share.
The purpose of this dinner – let me be clear – is to connect the church once again with our local community. We won’t make money with the $2 per family charge – we aren’t that efficient. Yet, it is a really good deal. And what we are trying to do is to step back into our proper spot as a center of the community, a place where people meet friends, a place where people catch up with their neighbors, a place where people come together to be comforted, and yes, a place where people connect with God through Christ. Hopefully, this will be the first of regular monthly dinners.
When we chose years ago to not have fundraisers, we also chose to disconnect ourselves from the community. We didn’t realize that when we chose to not have fundraising meals, we also chose not to connect with the community. Since I’ve been here, we’ve had several fellowship dinners – we’ve had the fall clothing giveaway. We even had the Halloween candy giveaway. But this is the first ministry we’ve done that rides on the edge between the church and the community.
And that is why we are having a community dinner. For hospitality is when we ride on the edge between our community and those who are outside our community, hopefully connecting us together. You can’t connect to other people without becoming vulnerable yourself, and you can’t connect any two things together unless you go to their edges. We have to go to the edge of our community - our church - and look for the people beyond the edge. We, as the ambassadors of Christ, have to become vulnerable to the world, for the world will certainly not become vulnerable to us.
And so, if you chose to come to the community dinner, we ask that you plan to do a couple of things:
First, try to bring a friend or a friend and their family. Yes, this means you will have to risk rejection. But Christ was rejected – He was killed – I don’t think your friends will kill you over a meal invitation.
Second, be hospitable to everyone you come into contact with. You may not feel comfortable introducing yourself to strangers, but remember that this is your home turf – imagine how uncomfortable those strangers feel! It is up to us to become vulnerable – they have become vulnerable just by showing up. Also, remember that other visitors will be watching how you treat each visitor.
So take a minute and introduce yourself to someone you meet. Ask them where they live, ask them what they do for a living. Tell they about yourself. Try to make a connection and a conversation. If they have kids, tell them about our Sunday kid’s program and the parent’s group that meets at the same time. Tell them a bit about yourself – and tell them a bit about the church and the Men’s group, the Women’s group, the Tuesday night study, the Kicks for Kids shoe giveaway.
Third, sit beside strangers. Don’t sit with people you already know except by accident. We need to put our edges beside their edges. Our purpose is to mingle. I know it is easier to stay in the middle of the herd, to sit at a table surrounded by this community. But studies have shown that people will make a serious effort to attend a church when they make three friends at the church. So after you have talked with someone a bit, introduce one of your church friends to your new friend, someone who has a bit in common with them – kids the same age, the same line of work, lives near them. And if someone tries to introduce you to a stranger, take the time to become vulnerable and open up to them, welcoming them and talking to them.
Be ready to give a tour of the church. Offer it to your new friends. Invite them to stay with you for the Bible study at 7 pm/6:30 if they appear to able – this might be tricky if they have three young children, so use common sense. (We’ll work to get child care on Tuesday evenings eventually, if some of the young parents would like it.)
Treat everyone you see, church friend or stranger, equally – as our neighbor. Remember that we are trying to make friends, not provide charity. We are trying to extend the edges of our community. If your new friend opens up to you and tells you some secret about themselves, it is not something to spread around. Love the person. Be welcoming. Show them that you are so delighted to make a new friend. And if you hit it off, trade phone numbers with them.
Above all, be friendly and positive about everyone you mention and the church. I generally will ask them “which church do you currently attend?” assuming that they attend a church, even if I’m pretty sure they don’t. And when they say they attend “such and such Baptist Church”, I say, “That’s great!” And when they say they really haven’t attended anywhere for a while, I say, “You’d be very welcome here. Our services on Sunday are at 9:30 am in the morning and 7 pm in the evening. Look for me!” And if they have kids, I’ll tell them about the 5 pm kids groups and parents group and introduce them to a parent that attends that group, like Adam or Amy Hamrick.
Imagine, if you will, that everyone who shows up here is stranded on the highway, a friend trying to get home on a dark, rainy/snowy night in March after a depressing basketball game. What can you do to help them get Home, a place where the light of our Lord glows brighter than the sun, a place where the fruit of the Tree of Life is borne twelve times a year, a place where people walk in safety and gladness and joy. A place you know the way to – can you get out your spotlight, shine it on the road in front of them, and help make friends beside the road, to help lead them Home?
We lost, and the St Mary’s contingent began the long trip back. But just outside of Glenville, we spotted a couple of friends pulled off the road. The guy’s electrical system was failing – he had no headlights on a cold, rainy/snowy March night. So we came up with a plan. Another friend drove slowly ahead of him, and we followed, manually directing the spotlight ahead of him as we turned right…then left…then right…then left for hours until we got him back to St. Marys, while another couple hundred fans followed us slowly up the road. It was how the community helped each other out, especially in my Dad’s generation. It was Christian hospitality. I wish I could say that I’ve always experienced such hospitality…
Abraham gives us an example of excellent hospitality in our Genesis reading today. Did you notice these points when he saw three men standing near his tent? “When he saw them, he RAN …to meet them and bowed to the ground.” He didn’t wait for them to approach him, for that would have implied he was superior to them. Instead, he RAN to them and greeted them with great respect – in his case, by bowing. We might say, “Welcome, we’re so glad you could come!”
And then he brought them water, had them rest in the shade under the tree, had Sarah make some bread, and himself found a “tender, young calf” – choice veal – which he had one of his servants prepare. Then he took the men curds – or butter – and milk, the calf, and then he “served” them – more literally, he “stood by” while they ate.
Abraham was quick to welcome his guests. He worked very hard to make his guests comfortable and welcome. He gave them the best he had – if we dropped by Abraham’s house today, he would invite us in, not for sandwiches, but for rib-eyes. He didn’t just give the water, but milk, not just milk and veal, but butter also – at a time when butter had to be churned. And now, for the kicker – when Abraham asked Sarah to take three measures of flour, he was asking her to take over 20 quarts of flour to make this bread – enough not only for today, but to take with them!
And these three men turned out to be the LORD and two angels.
But unless we get the idea that Christian hospitality should only be shown to people who could be angels, or otherwise help us, listen to what Jesus has to say to his host at a dinner, as Luke tells us:
“When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Jesus said to invite those who need the food rather than inviting those who you need. Don’t look at a dinner as a business deal, but as a command from God who will repay you for your kindness.
We all know that Christ tells us to love our neighbors. Well, folks, the first, necessary condition of a growing church is that we are hospitable to all people. But over the years, we’ve forgotten what it means to be hospitable because we have gotten so used to going out to a restaurant for restaurant hospitality, we’ve forgotten how to be hospitable ourselves. When was the last time you invited people who were not family over to your house for dinner?
Being hospitable means taking the essence of the golden rule and applying it to people we haven’t yet met. “Treat others the way you would like to be treated!”
But it isn’t easy for us, because to be hospitable, we have to become vulnerable. Think about it. Instead of Abraham calling his wife and servants to prepare food and drink for his visitors, he could have just as easily called his servants to gather weapons and chased away his visitors. After all, there were bandits in the countryside in those days.
But Abraham was confident. He knew that relationships are more important than things. Abraham knew that his stuff wasn’t as important as making friends. And so he became vulnerable, helping these new strangers become new friends by sharing valuable food and drink. He wasn’t worried about his stuff – he wanted to make new friends.
Folks, I could tell you multiple stories of churches that I’ve seen that had decided that their stuff was far more important than making friends, that had given into fear of the stranger instead of fellowship of the friend-to-be. I could tell you multiple stories of churches that had become so inwardly focused on maintaining the church and their own comforts, their own safety, that they had forgotten how to be hospitable to visitors.
And so I'll tell you of a couple of these stories...
One day, while Saundra and I were living in another state, we decided that it was time to try out a different church. We had moved with our business about 40 minutes from our old church, and it was just getting too difficult to get all four kids together, dress them, load them into the van and drive through traffic to our old church. Plus, our daughter was getting old enough for the youth group – and over a third of the youth group girls were pregnant in high school. So we decided it was time for a new church.
We had seen a cute little church about 5 to 10 minutes from our home and stopped by the parking lot on Saturday evening, where we found a sign that told us that the Sunday school was at 9:30 and the main service was at 10:30. So we went home, and the next morning we dressed our children and ourselves in “visiting clothes”. Since this was in back in the 90’s and we were visiting a Baptist church in the south, that meant I wore a sports coat, Saundra and the girls wore dresses, and the boys wore dress shirts and pants. I think Ian may have even worn a tie.
Well, we were the second car in the parking lot, arriving about 9:15. We walked in and were greeted by…silence. As we found our way to the sanctuary, we noticed a man working on a karaoke system up front. After a couple of minutes, he waved once and went back to what he was working on. We found a place to sit, about the second row from the back, on the left side. We admired the décor, which appeared to be just as it had been when installed in 1962. The children squirmed. I think we heard crickets... We waited.
At about 9:28, about 10 people came in. They all sat on the right side. Saundra and I would have been the youth group at this point by about ten or fifteen years. One older woman said "hello" and brought us bulletins and the Sunday School quarterly. She also offered to take our two youngest to another room for their Sunday School, which we agreed to.
Sunday School began.
A man read the lesson. I don’t mean he explained the lesson. He READ the lesson – poorly – from the Sunday School quarterly. I remember it was about the Kings of Judah. At one point he did make a comment – he noted that the Bible said that one king was about twelve years old when he took over as king, but he didn’t think that was right – and besides, his Bible, which had the years BC printed at the top of each page, implied that the kid might have been twenty years old or so because there was a twenty year gap in those years printed at the top of that Bible.
Saundra said I looked like Bill the Cat from the Bloom County comic strip as I tried to keep my mouth shut.
Well, the hour ended, that torture was over, our kids were brought back to us, and another five or ten people came in. We noticed that all except one family sat on the right side with everyone else. That family of four sat in front of us.
The main service began.
After a prayer and a song from the karaoke machine, the man who had been fixing the karaoke machine earlier – who turned out to be the pastor – began to have a business meeting about the roof repairs, which took 20 minutes to resolve. In the middle of this, we noticed the ten year old from the family in front of us got up and went somewhere and then came back.
Finally, after determining that they could afford about $6000 to spend on the roof - I remember the figure clearly because they took so long to get to it - and determining that one of the trustees would get estimates, the service continued. I think there was another song, and then a few more minutes while cancers and heart attacks and jobs of people we had never met were discussed, then a pastoral prayer. It was during the prayer that the family in front of us began to argue, punctuating the argument with slaps to the kids.
Finally, there was a sermon. Now, I have listened to many different types of sermons. Some tell a story, some are 5 bullet points and a summary, some cover a topic, some work their way through scripture. This sermon was none of the above. Following it was sort of like tracing a piece of spaghetti in a plate piled high or following a strand of Christmas lights that your five-year-old put in the box last year.
Somewhere in the middle of the sermon, though, I understood where the ten year old kid had disappeared to, for we began to realize why everyone was sitting on the right side of the church. It seems the air was flowing down the left side of the church past us from the back area – the area where the restroom was. The restroom that apparently had no ventilation to the outside. A porta-potty would have smelled better.
Saundra said my Bill-the-Cat impression was coming back. I have no idea what the point of the sermon was. I was trying to keep from gagging.
Finally, it was over, an invitation to the altar was given – no one went – a song was sung, and the service was over.
The older woman who had greeted us talked to Saundra for a minute, and we made our exit, following everyone else who had rushed for the doors.
The next week, we gave them a second chance, this time skipping Sunday School. At least there wasn’t a business meeting – and this time we sat on the right side. But there just didn’t seem to be any point in the service – no one seemed to be friends with each other in the church, the teaching was poor, and no one welcomed us since the older woman wasn’t there that week. They might want me to mention the name of their church…
So we tried a different church, a fast growing church nearby that was building an addition onto the main building. The parking lot was almost full.
Here, we had a bit of problem since we arrived after the first service had begun, about half way before the second service. But which entrance to go to, since there were no signs? I said in my best Dad voice – “This way” and we promptly entered into a lobby behind the sanctuary platform, with no way to sneak around and come into the sanctuary from the rear. We wandered for a couple of minutes, finally realizing where we were and sat down on a bench. A couple of people came by, too fast and too busy to flag down. Eventually, the girls found a restroom. Meanwhile, Saundra and I began to notice that we could see an occasional teenager walking past – and they were dressed to kill. The guys were wearing colored dress shirts with ties, the girls were wearing short skirts that looked like they were headed out for Saturday evening on the town. We looked at each other and said, “This is what we wanted to avoid.” So we packed up and drove down the road. I’ve forgotten the name of their church…
A couple miles down the road was another church. We knew a bit about this other church. The owners of the building our company was renting attended it. They had invited us to the church, and one of the retired pastors had actually stopped by when he was talking to one of the other companies in the building just to meet us. We’d gone there for a Wednesday evening dinner or two.
When we had showed up there at that Wednesday evening dinner, 18 people had introduced themselves to us – and were doing the same to the other first time visitors. Different groups took turns preparing and serving Wednesday dinners, which cost a buck or two per person. A couple of the elders of the church had helped us get our kids into the right rooms for Wednesday evening, led Saundra to a study group and me to the choir.
And the same thing happened on Sunday morning. We were introduced all around, especially to people who lived close to us and were parents with kids. There were wonderfully clean hallways, comfortable study rooms, and restrooms. The carpet was new, the paint was kept up and the décor looked like the latest issues of Southern Living.
The Sunday School teacher was an intense man about our age who was well-prepared. He dropped by our office that week to check on us. There was also a baptism that Sunday morning – and we found later there were baptisms about twice a month. Is it any wonder that this church of about 800 people was growing about 150 people a year?
By the way, it was called Calvary Christian Church. We stayed there until we moved to Ohio.
Notice the differences in hospitality between the three churches.
Folks, I could tell you multiple stories of churches that I’ve seen that had decided that their stuff was far more important than making friends, that had given into fear of the stranger instead of fellowship of the friend-to-be.
You know how Jesus told his disciples that they would become fishers of men? I’ve seen many churches that decided they didn’t want any of these men-fish in the boat unless they’d already been cleaned and fillet. And these churches were almost always tiny churches that had been in decline for thirty years. They had become so puffed up about who they were, about how holy they were, about how much better they were than the people who lived just down the block from their churches, that they didn’t want anyone who needed them – they only wanted good, clean, perfect Christians in their churches. Which may explain why every year there were less people in their churches than the previous year.
Christians! This is a fine line we walk when we have guests. On the one hand, we know we have what they need – for we have all received the grace and forgiveness and love that comes with Jesus Christ which has lifted us out of despair, lifted us out of the mud, lifted us out of the ditch that leads to destruction. We have been truly blessed and we want to bless others by sharing God's love!
But we must also remain humble, like Abraham did, treating our guests, our visiting neighbors as better than ourselves, for nobody wants to be looked down upon. Condescension is such an easy sin to acquire once we've received God's love!
At one church, I noticed that nobody who lived within two blocks of the church attended the church. It might be because of the "no parking except for church" sign. Of course, that church loved to have fellowship meals on a regular basis – but just for church members and those that were former church members, of which there was a very long list. So I finally convinced the church to have a community meal instead of a fellowship meal. And…they actually invited their sister church on the charge…and people came! But they didn’t invite anyone from the neighborhood. “Oh well, we’ll fix that next time,” I thought.
So it comes time for the meal and the people of the church brought in the ham and chicken and baked beans and corn and desserts and green beans and meatballs. And it looks like it’s going to be a wonderful meal. And then, the people of the church set up a table with all the food on it and they stand on one side with the spoons and serving forks and they carefully dole out the food to their guests as they come through the line, like cooks in the middle school cafeteria feeding the kids. And when they were finished serving, they took their plates and served themselves and then they all sat down together at a different table from their guests!
AAGH!
They had missed the whole point! For you see, they made two major mistakes:
First, they treated their guests like they were children, not to be trusted with their food! They treated them like soup kitchen clients, like they were afraid some guest might actually eat two chicken wings or have a double helping of green beans. They did not treat them like neighbors in a community that they all lived in!
And the second mistake was they didn’t sit and eat with their guests. The whole purpose of a community meal is to make friends, to get to know each other, to show that we are friendly and have faults just like our neighbors. We bond when we eat together – but have you noticed that we rarely bond with the people at the table across the room in the restaurant?
First of all, I know that in the past, some churches, including this church, had a policy of never having fundraisers. Instead, all our funds were raised internally. I agree with that policy and applaud that policy. But this is not a fundraiser.
You see, this is a community dinner. It is not a "community outreach dinner". We considered making it free, but our neighbors don’t want or need charity from us. We’ve found that people don’t want to go to free community dinners, because it makes them feel like they are helpless, they feel ashamed, they are children that are being taken care of. They don't want to feel like they are a project, being "reached out" to. They want to be welcomed into the community that we share.
The purpose of this dinner – let me be clear – is to connect the church once again with our local community. We won’t make money with the $2 per family charge – we aren’t that efficient. Yet, it is a really good deal. And what we are trying to do is to step back into our proper spot as a center of the community, a place where people meet friends, a place where people catch up with their neighbors, a place where people come together to be comforted, and yes, a place where people connect with God through Christ. Hopefully, this will be the first of regular monthly dinners.
When we chose years ago to not have fundraisers, we also chose to disconnect ourselves from the community. We didn’t realize that when we chose to not have fundraising meals, we also chose not to connect with the community. Since I’ve been here, we’ve had several fellowship dinners – we’ve had the fall clothing giveaway. We even had the Halloween candy giveaway. But this is the first ministry we’ve done that rides on the edge between the church and the community.
And that is why we are having a community dinner. For hospitality is when we ride on the edge between our community and those who are outside our community, hopefully connecting us together. You can’t connect to other people without becoming vulnerable yourself, and you can’t connect any two things together unless you go to their edges. We have to go to the edge of our community - our church - and look for the people beyond the edge. We, as the ambassadors of Christ, have to become vulnerable to the world, for the world will certainly not become vulnerable to us.
And so, if you chose to come to the community dinner, we ask that you plan to do a couple of things:
First, try to bring a friend or a friend and their family. Yes, this means you will have to risk rejection. But Christ was rejected – He was killed – I don’t think your friends will kill you over a meal invitation.
Second, be hospitable to everyone you come into contact with. You may not feel comfortable introducing yourself to strangers, but remember that this is your home turf – imagine how uncomfortable those strangers feel! It is up to us to become vulnerable – they have become vulnerable just by showing up. Also, remember that other visitors will be watching how you treat each visitor.
So take a minute and introduce yourself to someone you meet. Ask them where they live, ask them what they do for a living. Tell they about yourself. Try to make a connection and a conversation. If they have kids, tell them about our Sunday kid’s program and the parent’s group that meets at the same time. Tell them a bit about yourself – and tell them a bit about the church and the Men’s group, the Women’s group, the Tuesday night study, the Kicks for Kids shoe giveaway.
Third, sit beside strangers. Don’t sit with people you already know except by accident. We need to put our edges beside their edges. Our purpose is to mingle. I know it is easier to stay in the middle of the herd, to sit at a table surrounded by this community. But studies have shown that people will make a serious effort to attend a church when they make three friends at the church. So after you have talked with someone a bit, introduce one of your church friends to your new friend, someone who has a bit in common with them – kids the same age, the same line of work, lives near them. And if someone tries to introduce you to a stranger, take the time to become vulnerable and open up to them, welcoming them and talking to them.
Be ready to give a tour of the church. Offer it to your new friends. Invite them to stay with you for the Bible study at 7 pm/6:30 if they appear to able – this might be tricky if they have three young children, so use common sense. (We’ll work to get child care on Tuesday evenings eventually, if some of the young parents would like it.)
Treat everyone you see, church friend or stranger, equally – as our neighbor. Remember that we are trying to make friends, not provide charity. We are trying to extend the edges of our community. If your new friend opens up to you and tells you some secret about themselves, it is not something to spread around. Love the person. Be welcoming. Show them that you are so delighted to make a new friend. And if you hit it off, trade phone numbers with them.
Above all, be friendly and positive about everyone you mention and the church. I generally will ask them “which church do you currently attend?” assuming that they attend a church, even if I’m pretty sure they don’t. And when they say they attend “such and such Baptist Church”, I say, “That’s great!” And when they say they really haven’t attended anywhere for a while, I say, “You’d be very welcome here. Our services on Sunday are at 9:30 am in the morning and 7 pm in the evening. Look for me!” And if they have kids, I’ll tell them about the 5 pm kids groups and parents group and introduce them to a parent that attends that group, like Adam or Amy Hamrick.
Imagine, if you will, that everyone who shows up here is stranded on the highway, a friend trying to get home on a dark, rainy/snowy night in March after a depressing basketball game. What can you do to help them get Home, a place where the light of our Lord glows brighter than the sun, a place where the fruit of the Tree of Life is borne twelve times a year, a place where people walk in safety and gladness and joy. A place you know the way to – can you get out your spotlight, shine it on the road in front of them, and help make friends beside the road, to help lead them Home?
And what is Home like? Take a look at this video.
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