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#1- Hospitality is about comfort. The goal in hospitality is to make someone
else feel comfortable. If you are trying to impress others with your home or cooking or creativity then you are not practicing hospitality. If you are making others
follow your rules you are not practicing hospitality. Hospitality is about making
others comfortable even at the expense of your own comfort. To practice hospitality is to bring someone into your world and to lay down your preferences,
rules, goals and desires for the cause of their comfort. For example, if you’re hosting someone in
your home and you don’t allow shoes on your carpet, you may have to set that policy aside in order
to practice hospitality. If you are taking someone out to eat and you generally like to eat at fine dining
establishments hospitality may require that you go to a much cheaper more inexpensive restaurant.
To practice true hospitality is to make ourselves uncomfortable so that others can be comfortable.
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#2-You can practice hospitality anywhere. Hospitality isn’t just inviting someone over to your house. You can show someone hospitality at their home. Hospitality isn’t about space, hospitality is to take responsibility for the comfort of
another and that is something you can do anywhere. Imagine you are heading
out the door at the end of a long work day to see your family and relax when a
co-worker approaches and alludes to the fact that they are struggling in some
way. If you put off your exit to talk with them until they are satisfied, then you have practiced hospitality. If someone asks to buy you a meal as a display of gratitude and you accept even though
they have few financial resources and you have plenty, then you have practiced hospitality. If you
prioritize someone else’s comfort over your own and you do what is necessary to make them comfortable, you have practiced hospitality.
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#3-True hospitality is sacrificial. I have a group of good friends that I enjoy
watching football games with. I always enjoy their company, I feel little need to
clean up or dress up if they come over. We enjoy the same food and we all love
Michigan football. This is not true hospitality. I take no effort in having them over,
I don’t have to consider their preferences when I purchase or prepare food, their
company is just as much a blessing for me as mine is for them and we watch a
game that I would be watching anyway. Hospitality is not just for your good friends and it is not just
sharing the things you love with others. True hospitality takes sacrifice. If you truly want to practice
hospitality, God is going to ask you to expend time and effort. More importantly, He is going to ask
you to show it to people and in ways that you would not choose. As you obey God’s call to practice
hospitality, he will take you down paths you will never have anticipated. You will spend time with
people you don’t know, you will eat food you don’t like, you will participate in things you’ve never tried,
you will spend time in ways you wouldn’t choose. You will sacrifice. But as Pastor Jim has taught us,
sacrifice is God’s love language. If we wish to show God that we love him, then practicing hospitality
is a terrific way.
By Lee Bergakker
Middle School Ministry Director
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