The Ministry of Welcome
When I was a kid, my mom always had people over. And she always met them with the same comment: “The first time you come into our house, you’re a guest. The second time, you’re family.” She always says she’s a terrible host, but the fact is it’s because she doesn’t host – she just incorporates you into the household. My mom also took care of the elderly, both in the workplace and in our home, which became a workplace but still…you get the idea. So I guess I grew up with the concept that hospitality isn’t just one thing you do – it’s a whole worldview.
When my friend asked me to write about hospitality as missions, my mind immediately went in a hundred directions. There are more examples than I can write in one article. The older I get, the more I read things about how vital hospitality is. In fact, around the world it’s much more common than here in our Western civilization. Read the book Three Cups of Tea – it’s just a given in that part of the world that you will eat and drink together before you talk about anything. In many places, eating is literally synonymous with friendship – if you don’t trust someone, you won’t eat with them.
When we moved into our current house, I was 12 years old. My mom purposely bought a bigger house than we needed for the two of us (four bedrooms, two full baths) because she wanted to help people. When we moved in, she prayed, “God, please bless this house and help us to use it to help others.” At some point in the last year, when we had multiple kids and an extra adult living with us and eight dogs, most of which had been “donated” by various people who couldn’t keep them anymore, I asked her if she was sorry she had prayed that! Of course she wasn’t, but…well…it can be a lot.
But that’s just the thing. Hospitality can be messy. It isn’t all Martha Stewart fancy, get out the best china once a quarter, have over the important people from church type of life. It’s helping the single parent who’s trying to hold down multiple jobs to take care of four kids and can’t be three places at once to transport them, so you end up bringing a couple of them home a few days a week so she can breathe. And somehow you find that she’s helping you by bringing homegrown produce from her garden, and the kids are bringing you joy along with the tiredness that makes it all worthwhile.
Because hospitality always comes with a blessing for the hospitable as well as the receiver.
Shortly after my friend asked me to write about this, a member of our church gave a sermon about not comparing ourselves to others. He made the comment, “Don’t compare or think that if I had a bigger house I could invite people over,” but pointed out that God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?” As big as our house is, it’s often full to the point of overflowing. God will use whatever space you have…or more importantly, whatever space you give Him. Because He won’t force you. You have to be willing.
So how far can it go? Can it be as hard as living and working overseas? There’s a danger in comparing even in that regard, in thinking that somehow what you do here at home isn’t as important as “real mission work.” But what about the man who needs a place to stay because he got kicked out of his apartment complex, so you let him stay in one of your outbuildings and put a cot and a space heater out there so he and his dog have a safe place to stay until they can find another rental?
Or what about the homeless couple a friend brings to church, and they end up staying with you, and you get them to doctor appointments and job interviews and let them stay mostly rent-free until they can save up enough to get their own place? And sometimes it takes more than one round of staying with you because at their first home they end up being robbed while they’re away for the weekend, and so they end up back on your doorstep? These aren’t third-world problems – they happen right here in the U.S.
People say there are organizations to help people like that. It reminds me of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol – “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” The fact is, even though the homeless shelter of 21st-century America is probably better than the workhouse of 19th-century London, it still isn’t equipped to handle these situations. As I’ve discussed with multiple people recently, the government was never intended to handle problems like this. The Bible says that the family is responsible for taking care of its own, and if the family isn’t able to, then it’s the responsibility of the church. But we, the churches, have sadly and miserably failed in this task.
I told my friend I wish that every family would be willing to take another family and walk alongside them through everything. If they did, then the organizations, the social workers, the “professionals” could do what they do best, but people would get what they need most – the love and compassion of fellow human beings who are struggling along beside them through everything.
For me, I think that’s what it boils down to. Because mission work is the most important thing we will ever do. And while there’s a place for evangelistic series and building churches overseas and passing out food to the homeless, the most basic level of mission work is connecting with the people that you live and work and play and go to school beside every single day. Isaiah told God, “Here am I, send me,” and we quote that when we call people to go “to the mission field,” but the fact was God didn’t send Isaiah somewhere far away – He used him right where he was. So maybe we need to pray, “Here am I, use me.”
But be careful. Don’t ask God to use you unless you’re ready. You’ll start seeing people all around you who need things, and people will start to ask you for things, and you’ll feel the Holy Spirit prompting you to do things, and often they will be things outside your comfort zone. Because God isn’t worried about us being comfortable. He’s worried about us being saved and helping Him to save others. And in the end, that’s all hospitality is – being the hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice and wallet and shelter of Jesus to others.
You’ve probably already heard the biblical pronouncements of the importance of hospitality – Romans 12:13, Hebrews 13:2, etc. Perhaps you’ve even thought of the meaning behind the words of entertaining strangers unawares, thought of Abraham by the oaks of Mamre and wondered what it would be like to walk so closely to God, to feed and wait on God like a guest. But have you really thought about what that would look like in your life?
One of my favorite poems, by one of my favorite authors, is How the Great Guest Came by Edwin Markham. Always remember, our God is the God of the unexpected. You can’t fit Him inside a box or predict what He’s going to do. All you can do is open your heart to Him, ask Him to step in and steer, and then every time you mess up or try to go your own selfish way, ask Him to help you stop and restart on the right path. He will be there, He will do it, and He will bless your efforts, no matter how small. And maybe you’ll find that the smallest effort is the one that brings the biggest blessing after all.
Wanangwa Hartwell is a librarian and handbell teacher in Tryon, NC. She and her husband live with her mom and whoever happens to occupy the house at the time, which currently includes seven dogs and four cats. In her mostly nonexistent "spare time," she enjoys reading, listening to music, watching movies, and being out in nature.
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