Hospitality...the dominant gene of community DNA

I'm not the first to coin the term " Communal DNA ", but it has become an image that has stuck, and a word I use allot more often in conversations around community. DNA is the structure of life...a nice metaphor for the reality of a faith community. It's the DNA that gives the community its identity. It's the because of the unique genetic make up ( values ), that that's what the neighborhood sees when they look at us.

One of the most dominant genes in the communal DNA must be hospitality. Rather than being something that we try to achieve through strategy, a program, or a community task...it has to become a way of life. We can almost talk about it as a " Rule ", not a ritual...a rule is like a gene spliced into the communal identity. After a while it becomes so unconscious, that it is lived out by everyone. It won't happen over night, it is a process or an evolution...that is slowly relocated into every member of the community.

Hospitality should be understood as a way of life rather than as a task or strategy. It is easy to slip into viewing hospitality as a strategy for reaching new people, connecting and plugging them into the community. But,  such an approach misunderstands the basic orientation of hospitality. Hospitality is not a means to an end; it is a way of life infused by the gospel.

“Hospitality is a way of life fundamental to Christian identity. Its mysteries, riches, and difficulties are revealed most fully as it is practiced.”

“Hospitality begins at the gate, in the doorway, on the bridges between public and private space. Finding and creating threshold places is important for contemporary expressions of hospitality.”

Hospitality, rather than being something you achieve, is something you enter. It is an adventure that takes you where you never dreamed of going. It is not something you do, as much as it is someone you become. You try and you fail. You try again. You make room for one person at a time, you give one chance at a time, and each of these choices of the heart stretches your ability to receive others. This is how we grow more hospitable — by welcoming one person when the opportunity is given to you.–( Christine D. Pohl, Radical Hospitality )...thanks to Brad over at  Missional Church Network for the heads-up.

Hospitality is risky. I love the images of hospitality in the Gospel of Luke because they are triangular. There always seems to be Jesus along side of the person he is concerned about, and then this " third party." An observer, usually ready to point and comment. They invariably have difficulty with whats going on, so they mutter and murmur under their breath.  They do not understand the hospitality that Jesus embodies.

The beauty about the hospitality of Jesus is, that Jesus brings us into a much wider sphere. The hospitality of " Man and God at Table ", becomes a mysterious and divine land scape into which we enter into the redemptive imagination of Jesus. It's amazing how it is said, that when when we welcome the stranger we welcome Jesus. Again it's the world upside down, suddenly the stranger becomes host...and the host becomes guest. In hospitality both host and guest are blessed...and hospitality is evolving within the community. The gene has been spliced and hospitality becomes more visible. People can point and see that hospitality is an identifiable characteristic of the community.

Now onto the practicality of hospitality. Earlier in this post, I made this comment, " Hospitality, rather than being something you achieve, is something you enter, it should be understood as a way of life rather than as a task or strategy.

How do you not make it a" policy, a strategy or an obvious ministry." The way we did it in our community was to plant a seed. Find the most hospitable couple in your community and release them to do what they love doing. And again, we did this all under the radar of community detection. There was nothing written in the bulletin, nothing in the minutes of any board meeting, no power point projection or announcement. The community was oblivious as to what was going on.

So after planting the seed they invited, a couple who they thought might be interested, and then they started inviting strangers for lunch. And more seeds were planted, and it began to spread, and spread...to the point where now there are twenty couples involved. And some Sundays when there are no strangers they invite people they don't know.

The seed planting continues. One of the problems we had initially was identify strangers when they just happen to show up. Well we got the greeters involved. And, I don't like the word greeter, as I have been totally overwhelmed by the greeters in some churches. The experience almost as bad as being confronted by a salesman on a used car lot. So we just have folks that casually hang around the main entrance, as most churches only have one entry way. And, anyone they see that they don't recognize they just " casually " welcome them...rather than try and sell them something of the lot. And then the folks doing the welcoming let one of the people involved in the hospitality aware, a connection is made...lunch invitation at a home is made.

All I can say is it is working, there is something so divinely mysterious in hospitality...something so beyond us, " Hospitality is a way of life fundamental to Christian identity. Its mysteries, riches, and blessings are revealed most fully when it is spliced into the DNA of the community."

Comments

[jim]

It all really does boil down, not to just Christ "in" me, but the Christ Who flows "out of" me...

[ron cole]

Amen, Jim,hospitality is the reality of Jesus in the midst, and in that spiritual truth, the Spirit hovers like in the beginning of creation bringing host and stranger together.In this sharing of food and lives, the redemptive imagination of Jesus runs wild.

[brad]

Ron, you really should reference "Radical Hospitality" in this post as well - especially that fourth paragraph.

[ron cole]

Thanks Brad, I initially thought I had included that paragraph with the above two oh Christine Pohl, the author of " Radical Hospitality." So, thanks man, for editing my sloppy works. Peace...Ron+