(In this age of unbelief, Matt Chandler argues that “it all starts with hospitality.” In a recent training session with his church, he suggests four quick ways to show hospitality. The genius of his approach lies in its simplicity.–FCMM Editors)
The God of the universe is serious about hospitality. Hospitality can create an entry point for living out the Great Commission and evangelizing our neighbors — especially in the age of unbelief when most think the church is about something completely different. Yet we still have to ask, How do we show hospitality today? It’s not complicated — though that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
First, greet everyone
First, I think one of the easiest ways to show hospitality is simply greet everyone you meet. So just look them in the eye, say your full name, and then remember their name. Say their name back in your head.
Of course, that’s easy to do if you are wired like me — I’m a total extrovert. That’s hard if you’re an introvert, and maybe you’re thinking, “Can we just skip to number two, please?” But often the best actions to take are the hardest to do. Pray for grace, ask for strength, take a risk, and greet people.
Second, engage people
Here’s what I mean by “engage people.” C.S. Lewis reminds us that you have never met a mere mortal. Everyone you have ever met is eternal in some sense. Everyone you know will one day be a creature so lovely that if you saw it now you’d be tempted to worship it or a creature so distorted and evil-looking that if you have ever seen such a thing it would only be in your nightmares. All of us are headed to one of those two ends. We have never met a mere mortal.
Well, if that’s true, then engaging people as those made in the image of God who are eternal becomes significant in showing hospitality.
Engaging people begins in asking open-ended questions, letting your inner curiosity out. “What do you do?” “I’m a controller.” “Okay, what’s a controller? What does the week of a controller look like? What do you do on Monday? Do you control stuff? How does this work? Okay, is Tuesday any different? Do you have a day that’s very different?”
We may think this is all obvious — but often we hold back from doing it. We need to get to know people, take an interest in them, and listen to them, rather than just trying to think about how we can say something memorable or hilarious.
Third, make dinner a priority
The Bible over and over again talks about the holiness of eating together. Long dinners with good conversation that centers around what God has done, who God is, our fears, our hopes. That’s a good dinner. Good food, good drink, good company. The Bible says that’s holy.
Keep in mind where we are. We’re talking about hospitality, and hospitality is showing benevolence, showing good to those who are outside of our normal group of friends. Have meals with good friends for sure. You need to do that, but you also need to have those spaces in which there are people around that table who do not believe like you believe, who do not know what you know about the God of the Bible.
Remember, people are not projects. They’ve been invited into your life so that you might know them, engage them, love them, serve them, and walk alongside of them through a broken and shattered world. This is making meals a priority.
Lastly, pay attention and love the outsiders
I think you’ll find this to be true everywhere. In every work environment, every neighborhood, there are people who, for whatever reason, are kind of outliers. They don’t have a lot of friends. Not a lot of people know them well. If you’re just paying attention, you can spot this.
Those of you who have lived a little longer are like, “Yeah, I know. And there’s a reason. Every time I’ve engaged, there’s a reason they’re outliers. They’re socially awkward. They lack people skills. They’re life-sucking leeches.”
I’d like to just lay before you that you were probably all of those things as Christ wooed you and are still several of those things as Christ continues to love you.
But I want to lay this before you: Jesus Christ would have moved towards the outsiders. God extends radical hospitality to me and to you. That’s why we learn to love, and pursue, the outsider — because we were the outsider.
In these four quick ways, we can extend the hospitality that God has extended to us. I am passionate about you understanding that and grabbing hold of that, because I think your joy is tied to that. There’s a joy that’s far greater than most things, and that’s seeing someone sit around our table, ask questions about Jesus, have that conversation, and then pray for that person as they’re there, and then after they leave, as we’re going to bed, praying that God would open their heart, open their mind.
Then by his mercy, if they become a Christian, think about the joy that floods into our hearts and minds that way surpasses intellectual knowledge. God just took us to work with him.
How crazy is that?
Matt Chandler