Hospitality

Hospitality is a key concept for the church.  It is something we ought always to be practising.  It can be a cup of coffee after the service - the problem is when it stops there.

Alan Roxburgh says: "Hospitality, a profoundly Christian habit, is a radically alternative practice in a culture where people feel like strangers to one another in their own neighbourhoods ....  The DNA of the Gospel calls Christians into a way of life that addresses this fear and suspicion of the stranger.  People hunger to be welcomed, to be recognized and given worth in a culture that moves in the opposite direction.  Welcoming the stranger is a revolutionary act ... "  (Missional Map-Making, Jossey-Bass, 2010, p. 154/5)

Hospitality needs to become a description of how we function.

As Henri Nouwen says: "The term hospitality should not be limited to its literal sense of receiving a stranger in our house - although it is important never to forget or neglect that! - but as a fundamental attitude towards our fellow human being, which can be expressed in a great variety of ways."  (Reaching Out, Collins, 1976, p. 65)