Churches need to be better at showing hospitality

There are many things that I think my church does very well. Our church is great at preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. It is great at worshiping God. It is great at welcoming new people who come in for the first time. We have a fantastic work for children where kids always have fun while learning about the big God that we have. We also have fantastic Life Groups where we get to spend time with a small group of the church on a weekly basis, get to know more about each other, pray for one another and study the Bible together. We also engage with our community and the world as a church in a number of ways

One area however, that I feel is a bit lacking is the area of hospitality and being known and loved.

I have held on to a sadness about not being invited to people's homes. I did hope that the people that I had spoken to who had been members of the church for years might like to get to know this person who had just married one of their members, who had been a member of the church for a number of years. That sadly has never really happened. I am however glad when I hear of certain Life Groups in the church that do things together outside of Life Group and do life together.

I do realise that some people will read this and think well what is he doing to address it. The answer to that is that my wife and I are committed to having people around as often as we are able to. We have been doing this and have had several people over in the last couple of years and we have both enjoyed getting to know some of our church members more. We are not able to do this as often as we would like due to my wife’s poor health, and some weekends I have my daughters to stay with us and it can be a bit of a rush as I have to leave early straight after the service to take them back home.

The reason I am writing this is that (apart from the sadness I feel about how seemingly little desire people in the church have for wanting to get to know me on a deeper level), is that I have come to realise that I am not the only one who feels like this. This is an issue that can affect most if not all of the church. I am convinced that people leave the church sometimes because they are not finding people who really care about them deeply enough to find out about the things that make them tick. The things that people struggle with like the doubts that they have about their faith. To quote from a sermon “citizens of heaven who want to seek the Kingdom of heaven to come on earth do it alongside other citizens of heaven.”

I have been really challenged by the verses about the early church in Acts 2:44-47

“ All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

I think the verses talking about being in one another’s homes and sharing bread together is so vital. I was once told in a sermon that the word “companion” in its original meaning is “con” (meaning together with) and “panis” (meaning bread) speaks of a person who shares the experiences of another. We are in my opinion, to do this kind of thing a whole lot more often than we are. To be clear, this is a criticism of churches in general and not just ours. I have been a member of several churches over the years and in my opinion unless you are in a particular clique then you can end up going to church week by week and people only knowing your name and what you do for a living. I often find myself wondering why we find it so hard to spend more time with one another. I believe that some people feel that their Sunday afternoons are sacred and their home is their castle and after church they go home and pull the drawbridge up. A seat at the table that we have been encouraged to have is not meant to remain empty it is meant to be filled. It does not matter how big your living space is or if you are single. As one member of my church said in a talk a while ago, it does not have to be a three course meal, it could just mean inviting someone around for drinks.

There was a lady who stood at the front of our church once and said that she is so thankful to God for providing her with a family . She has not been coming regularly for a number of years now and it makes me wonder how much we care about our family members, especially those on the fringes of our church. She would really benefit from an invite of a family with children the same age as her son.

I am worried about the kinds of people who are or have been in our church who would really have benefitted from the book of Acts level of friendship and support. Like a single mum who tried to struggle along by herself and felt that she had to leave because she perhaps she felt, like me, that no-one really cared enough to make sure that she was being known and loved and ended up feeling that she needed to leave and go somewhere else that she and her child might get the support that she needs. Also a young guy in the church who has lots of questions about his faith but struggles on trying to make sense of his questions by himself or by asking the one close friend who he feels he can talk to. I guess you can say at least he has one person he can talk to about his doubts.

I write this because I believe that this level of being known and loved can produce great spiritual growth which is something that we should all desire for one another.

I would like us as a church family to get to a point where we know one-another well enough to not need to say “I never knew that about you!”.