Hospitality: The Power of Authentic Connection

Food preparation and clean-up run like a perpetual conveyor belt through my kitchen and through my life, so for me, the bigger challenge of hospitality is always logistics. I feel overwhelmed as I gather chairs from the far corners of the house. I forget to dust the top of the piano or spend too much time perseverating over which tablecloth to use.

With a head full of faithless fretting, I ask myself every time, “Why do I take on these assignments?  My house is never as clean as it should be!  I don’t have time for fancy menus…”   Feeling and sounding a lot like Martha of Bethany (Lazarus and Mary’s overwhelmed sister), I realized some time ago that I had been overlooking a far better role model in the Old Testament. 

We don’t usually consult Nehemiah for lessons in hospitality — he’s the guy we look to when it’s time to expand the church’s facility or to take on a project that requires delegation and teamwork.  However, in Nehemiah 5, he confides to his journal that throughout the course of his twelve-year term as governor, he regularly hosted “one hundred and fifty Jews and rulers, besides those who came to [him] from the nations around [him].” 

Nehemiah’s table was a metaphor for Nehemiah’s heart.  His fear of God (5:15) spilled over into a love for God’s people.  Making room for them at his table, he expanded the boundaries of his life to welcome them into his schedule.

Herein lies the challenge:  if my home cannot be “Pinterest perfect,” am I willing to open my doors anyway?  As usual, the real discipline shows up in motives and attitudes.  I Peter 4:9 sifts mine:

Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.”

In the Bible, hospitality means, literally, to entertain strangers.  The guest list for Nehemiah’s table was much broader than mine, and his provision for the needy remnant in Jerusalem is the same brand of faith-expressed-in-works that I recall from The Hiding Place in which Corrie ten Boom, faced with the plight of God’s people under the Nazi regime in Holland, prayed, “I offer myself for your people — any way, any time, any place.”

Hospitality is a spiritual discipline in which I trust God for the ability to pour myself out for the comfort and needs of others.  Paul’s letter to the Philippians encourages me that a sacrifice of love, offered freely, is a lovely fragrance that pleases the heart of God—even more than the scented candles that I almost always forget to light in all the flurry of preparation. 

If my home cannot be Pinterest perfect, am I willing to open my doors anyway?  As usual, the real discipline shows up in motives and attitudes.  I Peter 4:9 sifts mine: “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.”

Tweet

Becoming a Person of Welcome

I especially appreciated her use of the word posture, because my posture is really my way of being in the world. As a redeemed person, I exist in the freedom and the welcome of God, and whenever I carry that welcome forward in my response to those around me, I am living into a posture of hospitality.

Baghdassarian offers hopeful and concrete practices to her readers for finding their way into a posture of welcome, and it all begins with self-reflection and awareness. If I want to take hospitality with me wherever I go, I’ll need to become more tuned in to people and their needs. I will stop looking at my watch when someone is talking to me and measuring my productivity by check marks on the ever-expanding to-do list.

There’s a very real sense in which hospitality can happen when two shopping carts meet in the cereal aisle. Genuine welcome can be extended in the pew or around the coffee machine at church. In a world so hungry for welcome, believers in Christ are uniquely positioned to turn our faces toward both the familiar and the foreign, secure in the knowledge that God has first turned his face toward us.

What Other Reviewers Are Saying

“Grounded in a profound love for God, Becoming a Person of Welcome opens doors for its readers into a deeper relationship with the ultimate, divine, first host, as well as with the diverse world we get to serve. Thanks to Laura Baghdassarian Murray’s insightful blend of Scripture, story, and spiritual practices, you’ll gain what you need to meet others’ (and your!) deepest longings for belonging.”– Kara Powell, chief of leadership formation at Fuller Seminary and coauthor of Future-Focused Church

“In Becoming a Person of Welcome, spiritual director Laura Baghdassarian Murray takes readers far beyond the topic of entertaining guests in her exploration of Christian hospitality. In establishing ‘welcome’ as an approach to others, she expands the context of hospitality from invitations to formal dining rooms with lavish spreads and takes it to the office, the grocery line, the airport, the cafe, and the street. In doing so, she helps readers envision how we can carry and express hospitality―rooted in God’s movement toward us―in all our daily encounters. What a good word!”– Sandra Glahn, seminary professor and author of Nobody’s Mother

Holding You in the Light,

Laura Baghdassarian Murray explores an expanded context for hospitality in Becoming a Person of Welcome with the assertion that “hospitality comes from people, not just places… It is a practice that becomes a posture.” @ivpress

Tweet

Prepare for Thanksgiving with this New YouVersion Devotional!

I’ve got a new devotional plan ready for you on the YouVersion app just in time for Thanksgiving. Click HERE to start this five-day plan. I pray it will prepare your heart for this glorious season of gratitude. (There’s a good reason why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.)

---

Many thanks to InterVarsity Press for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Associate, which means that whenever you purchase a book I’ve shared here through the link I provide, I’ll receive a very small commission. It doesn’t cost you more, and I only share books here that I can wholeheartedly recommend.