Wrangler Dani

I told you yesterday about why hospitality matters so deeply to me. Today, I’m going to tell you some stories about church and hospitality, so gird your loins.

After we got married, Adam and I attended a church in our city for about six months. We went with some friends who were also church-hunting, and we never met another soul. Oh, there were people on the patio after the service and there was donuts and coffee, but no one said hi to us, no events were planned where we could get to know anyone – the church was quite comfortable for those in the club, but the rest of us treated it like a movie theater rather than a family gathering – buy your ticket, sit in your seat, leave quietly as the credits roll and talk about whether or not you liked it on the way home.

Our friends invited us to attend a new campus of the church where we met, and after one service we decided to switch churches. This church was tiny, with a video screen presentation of the “big campus” sermon. It was in an old movie theater with a skeleton staff – but there was a feeling of hospitality there, and we all became fast friends. Adam and I started cleaning up after services and producing the service itself. We operated the lights, cleaned the storage rooms, led a small group. We quickly realized that “young couples” like ourselves had very little opportunity to get to know one another, and so we started a young couples group (married people without kids), which honestly was just us inviting people out to lunch. We remembered what it felt like to stand silently in corners and we were determined to not let anyone else feel ignored on our watch. This grew and morphed until it became a full-blown marriage ministry, but you know all of this and I don’t need to get into it. The important part of this story is that our church was our living room. We were on the prowl for couples around our age, and if we saw one walk in to the foyer, we introduced them to others we knew. We got people coffee and answered questions and we never let a couple stand alone on the edge of the foyer without walking up and introducing ourselves. The church was OUR church, and no one was going to sit alone if we could help it.

When we moved to Bend, the only people we knew here did something very similar. They invited us to their church, had us over for bar-be-ques and introduced us to other couples. Without their generous hospitality, our first year in Bend would have been lonely beyond words.

I am not shy by nature but the church is an intimidating place to enter.

However, hospitality is vital to the church (even though it’s not often treated that way), and I recently experienced a couple of instances when the church was treated more like a DMV waiting area than a living room. When someone walks into your home, do you expect them to find the kitchen and bathroom by themselves, and let them stand awkwardly in the entryway while you go about your business? What about an acquaintance – do you push past them as they stand on your front porch, or do you make eye contact and say hello? Of course, in our homes we would never be rude or dismissive to a guest, and we would explain what’s going on (we’re having dinner, come on in!). Church should be treated in the same way. There should not be an announcement from the stage that is not explained, nor a person who’s not introduced. Even if we each just focused on our own age group or life-stage as Adam and I used to do, walking up to young couples in the foyer and introducing ourselves, what a difference it would make! What if you took it upon yourself to welcome just one person to your church? What if you put aside your own insecurity and said hi to the person you kindof know, making a real connection?

Guys, the mission of the church is not to be a club of right answers. Some of us have been so indoctrinated that the church is a “soul-hospital” that the only people we notice are those obviously in need of care – the homeless man, the lady crying in the front row – and so ignore the people who are walking in with less obvious needs.

We used to call churches a “church family” – does anyone do that anymore? I remember in the little country church I grew up in, visitors received about 20 handshakes and a well-meaning interrogation before the first hymn was sung. It was a tiny church, and is still a tiny church, doing low-tech services at 10:10 on Sunday mornings. (No one knows why it’s at 10:10, but don’t you dare mess with tradition!) But that church was and is a church family, and they taught me how to be hospitable, a lesson that I carried into a large, well-staffed megachurch in California and now here to Bend.

God is not limited by our failures, and he can work in and through our weaknesses, but he also calls us the Bride of Christ. Have you ever seen a bride dourly sitting in a corner at her own wedding reception? Can you imagine a beautiful girl in a white dress, in love with her husband and surrounded by family and friends, who will only talk to her maid of honor and no one else, who neglects to smile at her guests or hug her friends? Of course not – we would assume that such a wedding is not much of a wedding, we would consider how to help her, and wonder if she’s even in love with her new husband at all.

On our wedding day, our love for our spouse makes us friends with the world. We are bouyed by his love – normally shy girls find themselves tossing the bouquet with flair and hugging their guests with joy! I remember wearing my wedding dress, walking into the hotel bar on our wedding night and getting loud cheers from strangers – I didn’t feel awkward at all! I was deeply in love and the happiest girl on planet Earth in that moment.

Friends, let’s treat our churches like a groom in white, like a living room or a kitchen with the tea kettle on. Let’s hug freely and laugh easily. Let’s love each other like we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Let’s be generous. Let’s be hospitable.