You can literally see it in the way someone opens a door for you. One is doing the right thing, the other does it in the right way. One is a learned task, (open the door for new people), the other is pure joy and delight to serve.
Hospitality is not a strategy, it’s a way of living.
It’s true that hospitality as a strategy is helpful. If you treat your guests better they are more likely to return. But in contrast to a strategy, if you treat your guests well just because that’s who you who are (you can’t imagine treating them poorly), the difference is staggering. If you treat them like kings and queens because you are honored they would come to your church, and you care about them, and your goal is to serve them, not get them to come back, the difference is palpable.
Hospitality is not corporate, it’s personal.
We all have to organize our teams, plan and train the volunteers. Culture and method does matter, but ultimately it’s personal. The best hospitality is experienced when one human being engages another and the experience is lifted to a higher level because of the hospitality given.
To close, let me offer a few more scripture passages to encourage your thoughts on hospitality in your church.
Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings. Romans 16:23
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:1-2
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. I Peter 4:8-10
