DO YOU BELEIVE IN RADICAL HOSPITALITY?

In his newly published book, Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation, Bishop Robert Schnase highlights the practices that shape and sustain a vital church: radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity.

Schnase states, "Christian hospitality refers to the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ" (p. 11). Christian hospitality is radical because it extends beyond the basic hello and moves beyond welcoming only those who are already part of the congregation.

Hospitality is a major theme in the Bible (e.g. Deuteronomy 10:19), and Jesus' placed great emphasis on it in his teaching and in his actions. "...Jesus radically challenges the disciples' expectations by overstepping the boundaries to invite people in. Hospitality has us seeing people as Jesus sees them and seeing Jesus in the people God brings before us" (p. 13).

Schnase briefly recounts the radical hospitality practiced by John Wesley and the early Methodists that many church leaders of his day found offensive. Wesley believed that before people come to Christ, they have an innate desire to be in relationship with God that they attempt to fill in other ways. Hospitality is the invitation to them to enter into that relationship.

"A congregation marked by such hospitality adopts an invitational posture that changes everything it does. Members work with a heightened awareness of the person who is not present, the neighbors, friends, and co-workers who have no church home. With every ministry, they consider how to reach those who are not yet present" (pp. 21-22).

Radical hospitality resists the notion of the church as a social club simply gathering for a good time. Radical hospitality is based on the church as the Body of Christ that in all things seeks to fulfill the mission that Christ gave it.

The Trustees of the church are not normally thought of as a hospitality committee, but Schnase underscores the importance of having not only a functional, but also an attractive grounds and facility that will provide not only a useful, but an inviting atmosphere, and one that will particularly attract young people. He writes, "Most young adults work in newer buildings with modern lighting, contemporary colors and textures, and fire security systems that make them feel safe. They eat in restaurants and sleep in hotels and attend movies that meet high standards. They are accustomed to quality and cleanliness in restrooms, and they come with high expectations about the safety of the nursery and classrooms for their children. Many feel like they're traveling back in time when they visit a church and see the 1950s institutional green paint, the rust-stained floors and cramped toilets in restrooms, the dim lights in hallways, and the absence of smoke detectors and handicapped accessibility" (p. 25).

The decline of the church can only be reversed in a change of attitude, practices, and values. Schnase gets to the heart of the problem when he quite bluntly states, "Too many churches want more young people as long as they act like old people, more newcomers as long as they act like old-timers, more children as long as they are as quiet as adults, more ethnic families as long as they act like the majority in the congregation" (pp. 27-28).

A church that does not intentionally practice radical hospitality will not attract people. But, of course, there is more that a church must practice if it is to keep them; and first on the list is passionate worship. That is the subject of the next post.