Welcome the stranger—it could be you

Rarely had I witnessed such a busy hotel lobby at breakfast time. It seemed as if all the guests decided to eat at the same time. There was neither hot food in the serving trays nor a place to sit. After a long wait, I was able to get food but struggled to find a spot to eat it. Almost at the point of heading back to my room, a stranger offered to share his table with me. I accepted.

The subtle demeanor of my gracious host radiated privacy and invited quietness. In turn, I felt an inexplicable gratitude for such a simple and yet meaningful gesture. I decided to break the silence: “Since we are sharing this table, we might as well get to know each other a little. I am Nelson. What is your name?”

“Andrei is my name,” he quietly replied while pausing from taking another spoonful into his mouth.

He then made eye contact with me while swiftly removing one of his earbuds. He was listening to something on his tablet.

I continued the dialogue. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”

He hesitated to answer such a basic and noninvasive question. I feared that my inquiry was edging on private territory, or was something else going on? Could it be that his trip did not fit neatly into either category?

After a pause, Andrei replied, “I am here for a funeral.”

I stopped eating my bagel and directed my full attention to him, communicating sympathy with my body posture.

“I am so sorry,” I muttered.

The conversation continued to other areas of life, including career.

“I am a pastor,” he said. “In fact, I am listening to my congregation’s online worship service. I am coming from the Bahamas.”

Very politely, he reciprocated my question and asked, “What about you? Are you here for business or pleasure?”

I was glad to tell him that I, too, was a pastor and I was preaching for a group a few miles down the road. When he inquired about my denomination, I told him that I was a Seventh-day Adventist minister. He then pulled his other earbud out and became fully engaged. Pastor Andrei shared that he was familiar with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In fact, his daughter and wife had been Seventh-day Adventists. His daughter attended Pacific Union College, and it was there that she met her husband of two short years, now deceased—the reason Andrei was in town.

I was able to ask questions as a colleague in ministry, to which he replied with a new level of trust and openness, realizing that the person across the table understood his world. Much to my regret, I had to cut the conversation short to be on my way to my speaking engagement. However, with a deep sense of empathy and gratitude, I offered a prayer for Pastor Andrei. He, then, returned the favor by praying for me.

The transformation of hospitality

This experience reminded me that hospitality was vital to the advancement of Christianity (The Way) in the early church. Later, in the fourth century, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, which gave way to a new era of hospitality. In addition to homes and churches, Christians established hostels, hospices, hospitals, and monasteries—a compartmentalization of hospitality that, eventually, became the norm.

Throughout the centuries, increasingly smaller households, industrialization, and the changing church (structure, relation to the state, and social welfare) modified hospitality practices. By the eighteenth century, biblical hospitality in Western culture was considered “out of step with busy commercial society, a relic from an earlier time.”¹

An itinerant preacher in the early church, for instance, would have stayed in church members’ houses and eaten at their table. In fact, Paul encouraged the practice of hospitality (Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2), while Peter admonished the church of Asia Minor to offer hospitality without grumbling (1 Pet. 4:9). Furthermore, Peter listed hospitality as one of the four critical actions the church must embrace knowing that “the end of all things is near” (v. 7, NIV). Today, we travel with the convenience of planes and automobiles, as well as the impersonal service of hospitality establishments such as hotels and restaurants.

We struggle today

Peter’s advice to offer hospitality is prophetic words for our day. Many churches appear to labor with this ministry. Hospitality has been reduced to feeding people after church while struggling to find members who will coordinate the fellowship meals.²

Oftentimes, the emphasis on an elaborate meal discourages many from receiving people at home or church because hospitality is seen as entertainment rather than giving of oneself. Even though food is central to almost every manifestation of hospitality, it does not need to be extravagant. Dr. Christine Pohl reminds us that “the most important expression of welcome is giving someone our full attention.”³

The hospitality of strangers

Growing up in a big city shaped my hospitality practices; I was forewarned to be cautious about connecting too quickly with people whom I had just met, even at church. My perspective drastically changed when I found myself in a foreign country, college-bound, without family or resources during my early young adulthood. I discovered an embracing community among the less affluent of society. Hospitality changed the direction of my life. The welcome I experienced from strangers reframed my past beliefs and opened up a world of service before me—one of the strongest reasons I decided to attend the seminary. I was able to share my gifts with this welcoming host community. I not only experienced a sense of belonging but also rediscovered who I was in Christ.

Ethnic communities find the practice of hospitality natural. Pohl reflects, “Traditional African American and Hispanic cultures value hospitality highly, and have a long history of practicing it graciously even when resources are limited.”⁴ Sociologists recognize familism as the value of being together as family (collectivism) over individualism. Blood relatives are a given, but friends can rise in the ranks of family, too. Immigrant communities tend to form strong bonds of friendship in host cultures. It is a way of survival. Churches provide a weekly space for the ritual of listening to each other’s shared narratives of pain, struggle, and hope.

As a newcomer to the United States in the late nineties with no money, shelter, transportation, or food, I was ashamed to ask for help, but I could survive only if someone assisted me. On my first Sabbath visiting an ethnic church, the young adults gathered after sundown to enjoy time together at the Go-kart Racetrack. Everyone jumped into their vehicles to get there; I was one of the last ones at church with no ride. Spontaneously, a friendly young adult, Miguel, asked me from behind, “Do you need a ride?”

With much gratitude, I nodded my head in anticipation of his offer of a ride. He invited me into his work van with a big smile. As soon as I closed the door and before he started the van, Miguel asked me all the right questions: “Do you have a place to stay? Do you have work? And what is it you want to accomplish in this city?”

On that night, Miguel became an angel to me. He was a stranger who met all my immediate needs for six months, an impactful experience. He never took credit for it, and I never got to thank him properly. He would just say, “I know how it is; we all have gone through it.”

Some principles

I realize that not everyone is naturally wired or circumstantially able as were Andrei and Miguel to welcome strangers. However, believers can take steps to improve the ministry of biblical hospitality at home and church in a few simple ways:

1. Study best practices of hospitality with your church board, evaluate the current state of your church, and make the necessary adjustments. Simple practices, shaking hands, remembering people’s names, and connecting a stranger with another church member, will go a long way.
2. Preach a series on hospitality, ending with an invitation to further study the topic in a small group setting, attend a seminar, or join a hospitality team.
3. If your church cannot offer a fellowship meal every Sabbath, have a team (a Sabbath school class, a small group, or volunteers) stay at church for a fellowship meal and bring additional food for visitors, or schedule designated families to take guests home those Sabbaths.
4. Follow up with visitors. I have been impressed with churches that send me a greeting card after a visit. Others have gone the extra mile to call me. However, none have stayed in touch after that initial contact. Set up a group, such as retirees who enjoy writing, to stay in touch with visitors who wish to continue building a relationship with the church.
5. Decide ahead of time how to deal with impromptu walk-ins asking for assistance. Will we give money? How much? Would we pay for a hotel room? Will we refer the person to a social service specialist or organization? How do we deal with repeat solicitations from the same individuals?⁵ Have a protocol in place and lists at the ready.
6. Hospitals and jails are opportunities for hospitality ministry. How can your church regularly visit sick church members and strangers at hospitals and jails to bring hope?

Make an eternal difference

Where is God calling you and your church to go with hospitality? Make room at your table? Set aside money for hospitality assistance? Have a meal with a stranger weekly? Make room for interruptions? Care for strangers in your community (homeless, sick, newcomers, etc.)?

We never know what such simple acts of kindness, of hospitality, can do. They can, indeed, make a difference for eternity. Moses counseled the people of God, “Don’t abuse or take advantage of strangers; you, remember, were once strangers in Egypt” (Exod. 22:21, The Message). Some of us are where we are today because somebody welcomed us.

With not much effort, or maybe with a lot of effort, if need be, we need to perfect the lost art of hospitality because, if Peter could write, back then, that “the end of all things is near” (1 Pet. 4:7, NIV), what should that say to us?