Vol. 15 No. 5
Dear Friend,
Hospitality is the practice of the open door.
Whenever you welcome someone into your home for conversation, or a
meal, or to stay overnight you are practicing hospitality.
You are practicing hospitality whenever you include anyone with
you in anything you are doing. Indeed, hospitality goes deeper than a welcome
into your home or your activities, it is a welcome into your life.
Hospitality in its deepest and truest form offers a warm welcome
to the stranger. Ask yourself, "When is the last time I shared a meal with
someone outside my family or close circle of friends or co-workers?"
Hospitality is defined by the word in. It includes, pulls in, welcomes
in, and invites in.
Hospitality moves beyond friendliness. You can be friendly and
warm to persons you meet in the church or supermarket and yet never intend
to involve them in your life.
Hospitality for your church goes far beyond the openness of its
services and meetings to guests. Your
church is hospitable when you are hospitable in your personal life.
Be alert to those people God brings to you with whom you may
practice hospitality.
"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling" (1 Peter
4:9).
"Do not forget to
entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels
without knowing it "(Hebrews 13:2).
E. Stanley Ott
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