The early Church held this quality in high regard. We ignore it at our peril, says Peter Meadows
Right now there are churches looking to appoint a new leader, pastor, vicar, top honcho or whatever.
Lists of expectations have been drawn up with mind-blistering care – littered with words like ‘prayerful, ‘pastoral’, ‘good preacher’, ‘team leader’ and more.
Yet, I guarantee, there’s one quality nowhere on any list – even though it is clearly spelled out in the Bible.
When Paul writes to Timothy to say what is expected in a church leader he says they are to be, “temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…” (1 Timothy 3:2).
Did you spot the sneaky word everyone misses?
They must be “hospitable” - regularly opening their home and making others welcomed and accepted.
This matters because leaders are to demonstrate the hospitality the rest of us should also be doing.
I’ve seen this in practice. As a 19-year-old I encountered my first church - a quaint and faithful bunch with hospitality oozing from their paws. No one ever ate Sunday lunch alone. Every visitor was swept up.
I’ve also seen churches where the preaching was up there with the best and all the boxes ticked on the standard wish list for a leader. Yet the leader’s book-lined study was the closest anyone got to the leader’s dining table. This lack of a role model meant the flock were never inspired to show the loving and generous welcome that should be the hallmark of authentic discipleship.
But please don’t let this conjure up thoughts of simply, “come to ours for supper.” The hospitality the New Testament calls for is that on steroids.
At a time when inns were rare and often unsafe, hospitality meant welcoming guests overnight - with food, shelter and safety. Guests were to be treated with respect and honour, possibly even involving a ceremonial washing of feet. All without grumbling or seeking something back.
This is a challenge to our individualistic Western culture. If it sounds a tad unreasonable it’s because it reflects God’s own unreasonable offer of love and welcome to us.
hospitality can be the secret sauce turning ordinary moments into unforgettable experiences
Yet I need to take this up another level. Who are those who should be on the receiving end of our hospitality?
It’s not those who are easy to welcome, who may even respond in kind. The Greek word Paul and Peter use for hospitality means to show love and to host strangers. It’s about care for those little known to us.
I once had a conversation with a young, single Belgian pastor who was seeing great encouragement in his somewhat ridged and stoical church. I asked him, “what do you put this down to?”, expecting something from the standard list. Prayer. Clear biblical preaching. The Holy Spirit. Instead, I learned, since coming to the church he’d worked to show hospitality to every family and individual by having them to his home for a meal. And change had come.
Done right, hospitality can be the secret sauce turning ordinary moments into unforgettable experiences. It’s a reminder that you matter, belong, and are among friends – which is what Jesus’ followers are supposed to be.
Opening your home - and your heart - brings a space for people to share stories and create memories. In a world that can too often feel cold and disconnected - where people speak of an epidemic of loneliness - those moments are like precious gems that light up the darkness.
If you Google, ‘How can a church be better at hospitality?’, you’ll be met with how to run the car park, the need to signpost the loos clearly, and how to set up a welcome desk. That’s how blind we are the reality of what God calls us to.
How can churches take hospitality more seriously? Here are some thoughts:
- Leaders should teach it, preach it and model it.
- Establish a plan and a budget – to make it more than just an aspiration.
- Start with the low hanging fruit – have an occasional Sunday when the church family invite each other with an emphasis on those ‘strange’ to them.
- Create a list of those in the church who are single and less linked to others – and make sure they are hosted.
- Link together singles who might find it hard to offer hospitality by themselves.
- Use Social Services to find those who are lonely, creating a plan to welcome them either in homes or for a communal meal.
- Go large by encouraging members to give hospitality in capital letters to children needing fostering (see Home for Good). And those in desperate need having fled to the UK for their safety (see ICN).
Hospitality isn’t about putting on a show or trying to impress. It’s about creating an atmosphere of warmth and acceptance where someone feels valued and included. And the Church needs as much of that as it can get.
Which is why one of the first questions any church leadership candidate should be asked is, “Tell us how you practice hospitality, and please give us some recent examples.”
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