THE PASTOR'S MESSAGE
“Don’t forget to entertain strangers, for by doing
so some people have entertained angels without knowing it,”
Passages of Scripture, like
this one from Hebrews, should give us pause to see how important the ancient
church considered hospitality to be.
There are a variety of ways
the Hawley Church seeks to demonstrate hospitality – one of the most obvious is
our Coffee, Tea and Conversation time that follows each Sunday worship
service. We gather in the Great
Hall for some refreshments and to engage in conversation with friends, hopefully
with those who may be visiting with us.
For over a year and a half we
have been offering Sojourner’s Café on the first, third and fifth Saturdays of
the month. This free meal is
hosted by members and friends of the Hawley Church, at their own expense. Another sign of hospitality that has
emerged over the past year or so involves our pot luck meals which often
include those outside the church who have been made to feel welcome.
There are other ways that the
church shows hospitality than through food. The role of greeters and ushers is to welcome both
parishioners and the visitor (the stranger) into our worshipping
community. Most of us who have
attended churches away from home know how awkward one can feel when entering
into a new worship setting. Often
a smile and friendly greeting makes the visitor feel welcomed to the worship
service.
The nursery is another aspect
of hospitality. Anyone who has
tried to worship with very young children knows how difficult this can be at
times, so this ministry is important in that it not merely offers a safe
environment for young children, but a well staffed nursery provides a ministry
to the parents and illustrates our effort to be faithful to the hospitality
dictum.
Hospitality doesn’t happen by
accident. Both the church, as an
organization, and the church as her membership need to embrace hospitality and
see it for what it truly is – a faithful ministry of the church in response to
what God has done for us. There
are some writers today who speak about ‘radical hospitality.’ A true ‘radical’ is one who has
returned to his or her beginnings, to his or her ‘roots’ - and hospitality is
one of the earliest illustrations of what it means to be a follower of Jesus
Christ. To refuse to show
hospitality or to simply ignore this aspect of the Christian faith brings one
into sharp conflict with the Gospel and with the teachings of the first
generation of believers. Throughout the history of the church, a sign of God’s love in this world
has been shown to the entire world that one is a disciple of Jesus Christ.
If you have not had a chance
to be part of the church’s ministry of hospitality you can see that there are
various avenues you can travel. We
must not lose sight of how important hospitality is to the life of both the
individual believer, and the church as a whole. If the writer of Hebrews was correct, we might well be
entertaining angels during those times when we least expect it.
