5 Practices of a Fruitful Congregation
Radical Hospitality
Deut. 10:19 & Hebrews 13:2
09-30-12
Deuteronomy 10:19 (NSRV)
You shall also love the stranger, for you were
strangers in the land of Egypt.
Hebrews 13:2 (NSRV)
Do not neglect to show hospitality to
strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Why do people need Christ? Why do people need the church? And why do people need Indian Trail United
Methodist Church? These are three
questions that Adam Hamilton in his book, Leading
Beyond the Walls, states all churches should be clear about. Each of us in this church should be able to
answer these questions without hesitation and without effort. But let’s face it, how many of us struggled
with them?
On my first Sunday here I asked you all to
fill out notecards and tell me a little bit about yourself, the church and what
dreams you have for this congregation.
95% of the cards desired that we grow as a congregation. In order to grow we have to be fruitful. To be a Fruitful Congregation we have to
live into our mission. Our mission is found in the last few verses
of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus says, “Therefore,
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that
I’ve commanded you.” That is our great
commission as a Church (with a big ‘C’) and church (with a little ‘c’). If we are to be the love of God in this
world; if we are to be image-bearers of our God; if we are to Body of Christ
then we have to live into this mission.
Over the next five weeks we will be looking at five different practices
that keep the church focused on this mission.
Bishop Schnase states that if we follow and work on these five practices
we will become a fruitful congregation.
The five practices are labeled here on this
jumble of fruit. They are Radical
Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional faith development, Risk-taking
mission and service, and Extravagant generosity. Today we are looking at Radical Hospitality.
When I was a youth pastor, Alycia and I took a
group of youth up to New York City to work with a group called Youth Service
Opportunities Project, YSOP. For a week
we journeyed around the five boroughs of New York City working with soup
kitchens, clothing closets, church ministries, homeless daycare centers and
many other ministries that reached out to the homeless population of New York
City. As we traveled we took public
transportation. What was fun was
watching the youth being as polite as possible.
It was almost like the high school boys were in a competition to see who
could be the most polite. Every time we
were on the subway and the doors would open they would hop up and invite a
woman, child, or an elderly person to take their seat. On one trip the train wasn’t too full but as
a group of middle aged women got onto the train, two of the youth jumped up and
offered them their seat. The women were
astounded and very grateful. As one of
them said thank you the other smiled and said to one of the youth, “You aren’t
from around here are you!”
What those boys were doing was beyond polite
but they were being hospitable. Showing
people hospitality is a basic characteristic of what it means to be a
Christian. Open the Bible to the New or
Old Testament and you will find story after story of God’s hospitality to us
humans or humans showing hospitality to other humans. Rahab showed the spies of Israel hospitality
by letting them hide. The Pharaoh’s wife
showed the baby Moses hospitality by welcome him into her family after she
found them in the basket in the river. Mary
and Joseph found hospitality by in the Inn Keeper who finally found them a
place to say and give birth. Jesus was
welcomed in the home of Mary and Martha and the disciples found places to stay
as they journeyed to spread the church.
Hospitality is in the basic DNA of our faith.
The Deuteronomy text reminds us of where our
lineage starts. We trace our religious
heritage through the Hebrew people who were once slaves in Egypt. The story of their exile is our story as well
and paints the picture of a God who loves his people even when they are strangers
in a foreign land. They understood what
it meant to be strangers and now God is asking them to remember that when they
meet strangers in our midst. This can be
a hard concept to digest but as Christians how we treat the stranger in our
midst tells a lot about where we are on our faith walk. As the Hebrew text reminds us, we never know
when we will be entertaining angels in our midst.
True Christian Hospitality is seeing people
the way that Christ see them. How did
Christ treat the stranger in his midst?
He made them the heroes of his parables like in the parable of the Good
Samaritan. It wasn’t the religious ruler
or the priest who stopped to help the man, it was the hated foreigner, the
stranger, who took care of him. Jesus
had a heart of the least of these in the world.
He ate with despised tax collectors and women of questionable
careers. He reached out and gave water
to the woman at the well and let his feet be bathed in expensive oils. He had a heart that was always open for
anyone and everyone and that is the heart that we should have as a church.
I am currently reading a book called 10 Temptations of Church and in it there
was this astounding quote. “The church
is the only organization that doesn’t exist for the sake of its members.” I have clergy friend who when he welcomes
people into the church he says, “We welcome you as a member of this church and
now it is not about you.” Remember our
core mission, we are to go out into the world and make disciples. Church, at its heart is not about us, it is
about them. Those who are outside these
walls come here looking for answers, guidance, and a way to connect. Our job is to be as hospitable to the
stranger among us. God welcomes and
embraces everyone and so the question is turned back to us, as the church. Do we mirror that attitude?
Like about every place in the Bible belt on my
way from my old parsonage to church I passed another United Methodist
Church. They had an older marquee sign
out front and on it had a little bit of the United Methodist slogan.
The slogan is supposed to read, Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open
Doors. But at this church it read, Open
Hearts, Open Doors. I laughed to myself
every morning because they were promoting to anyone who knew that slogan that
they did not have open minds. I know I
would enter that church with some presuppositions that it would be hard for me
to come in and feel at home. If their
minds were truly closed then they probably only wanted clones of themselves.
The problem many churches have is that they
want to grow, they want young families and lots of kids as long as they can
stay the same. But to grow is to change
and to change means we have to realize we have to welcome new sheep into our
flock. Those new sheep may look
different than us, act a little different or come from different countries like
California or New Jersey. If we are to
be a fruitful congregation then we have to learn and live out radical
hospitality.
Bishop Schnase explains why he put the word
Radical with hospitality because usually those two words don’t go
together. We are used to southern
hospitality, warm hospitality but radical?
What Schnase means by radical is “people offering the absolute utmost of
themselves, their creativity, their abilities, and their energy to offer the
gracious invitation and reception of Christ to others. Churches characterized by Radical Hospitality
are not just friendly and courteous, passively receiving visitors warmly. Instead, they exhibit a restlessness because
they realized so many people do not have a relationship to a faith
community.”
Churches that exhibit radical hospitality
remove from their minds the phrase “they ought.” I have heard numerous people in many
different church settings say, “They ought to invite some new people to come to
our church.” Or they look at the staff
of the church and say, “They ought to make sure those people know about this
ministry of our church.” What a
congregation who practices radical hospitality thinks is “I will.” I will invite that family that just moved in
down the street. I will make sure that family
with that young baby that just shows up knows we have a nursery available if
they want to take advantage of it.
Radical Hospitality moves us to be empowered to move from what they
should do to what is it that I can do to reach out to the strangers in my life
that are looking for a way to connect to God.
I have been doing some research on the
demographics that make up our community here.
I looked at a three mile radius of the church and I’m starting to learn
a lot about Indian Trail. I am learning that
it is the opposite of where I have been for the last five years. In Thomasville there was around 25,000 people
and about 90 congregations. There were
11 United Methodist Churches within a five mile radius. There are only four United Methodist Churches
in Indian Trail; Faith, Union Grove, Mill Grove and us. One other stat that is a huge difference is
how many people think it is important to come to church. In Thomasville only 14% of people thought it
was important. Here 25% of people think
it is important to attend church regularly and be a part of a faith
community. That means one in four people
you meet are hungry to connect with God, if they haven’t found a place to do
that, why not invite them here? If you
were one of those people who said you wanted to see this church grow, that
means you need to say to yourself, “I will invite someone to this church.”
Everyone who is active in this church can
probably point to someone else was instrumental in bringing them here or having
their faith grow. If you were born into
this church and have known no other, you are the fruit of your grandparents and
parents who brought you here every week.
If you were invited or welcomed into this church there is someone here or
was here that gave you a sense of belonging and made you feel comfortable and
loved. Bishop Schnase says, “Every
member of the Body of Christ is the fruit of someone’s ministry and
faithfulness. Who is the fruit of
yours?”
Radical Hospitality demands that we do things
in our church that makes it accessible to those who are new to the faith. When I read this book for the first time I
was smacked across my face with how many times I lead worship thinking everyone
knew what was going on and why we did what we did. I went to a funeral a couple years ago at an
Episcopal church. Now I am an ordained
elder of the United Methodist Church. I
have been trained and have two degrees focused on Bible and Religion. I have lead hundreds of worship services. I am a professional clergyperson and I was completely
lost in that service. I sat down in
those pews and I looked at the Common Book of Prayer, two different hymnals
that had the labeling worn off so I didn’t know which one was which. Then there was a bulletin that only had
references to what I guess was which book was what. But there were still times when people stood
without the priest asking them too.
There were times when they recited stuff I didn’t know what to say. I felt left out and lost. I had to look really hard at how I was
leading my worship services and the call to be radically hospitable to the
stranger among us.
That is why the screen is one of the best
things that has happened to worship. Not
only is it a big piece of paper that some people can actually read the words to
the hymns now (can I get an Amen) but it can be a way to share with stranger
what we do and when to do it. After I
read scripture I say, “this is the word of God for us the people of God,” and
you all repeat, “Thanks be to God.” With
the screen I can put that small little liturgy up there and if you don’t know
it you can act like you can. Same with
the Lord’s Prayer. We assume, and there
is something that happens when you assume, that everyone somehow knows the
Lord’s Prayer. But there is growing
population of people out there that didn’t grow up in church and may have heard
the prayer before but don’t have it memorized.
Or they grew up in another denomination that may have a slightly varied
way of saying it. Either way, when the
Lord’s prayer is up on the screen everyone can join in together whether they
know it or not.
There are plenty of other ways that we can
show radical hospitality within our worship service. Visitor parking, great signage, greeters who
know how to direct new people to key places like bathrooms, nurseries or a
place to sit. How would you feel if you
walked into a church and the greeter greeted you and said, “It is nice to meet
you and we are glad you are here today.
Is this your first time worshipping with us? Great, glad you are here. If you don’t mind follow me and let me
introduce you to someone. This is Joel
and Missi. They have two sons who looks
to be about the same age as yours.” What
that greeter did was make a connection for those visitors. It went beyond a simple greeting to engaging
people and connecting them to someone.
That is a radical way of showing hospitality.
There are plenty of other ways and I hope we can get into those in the small groups that will be happening at 7:00 tonight and 10:00 tomorrow morning. I hope you will plan on coming to one of those session in order to help discuss what we do to be radically hospitable already and how we can grow to be even more.
As we continue down this journey we need to
always have those question Adam Hamilton laid out, “Why do people need
Christ? Why do people need the
church? Why do people need this
particular church?” If we journey
together to find out those answers and the enable ourselves to live those
answers out through these five practices.
We will be a fruitful congregation and one that is growing and reaching
people out there that need the God we have come here to worship.
And all God’s people said…Amen.
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