A Vision Of Hospitality

Matthew Introduction:
This passage is a metaphor about the day of final judgment. As in all judgment accounts, the focus is on how we live our lives today. In this account, notice the criteria for whether you are in or out, whether you are a sheep or a goat. As you will see, it has nothing to do with what we often hear is the path to salvation.
Read Matthew 25:31-41

Hebrews Introduction:
In Matthew, Jesus tells us that when we serve those who are most in need we have actually served him. The next passage from Hebrews, talks about being hospitable in our relationships to the stranger. This hospitality is an expression of mutual love. There is an implication in this passage that God may at times provide us with these opportunities to show love by placing angels before us. Who might these angels be?
Read Hebrews 13:1-2

SERMON:

Last week, I shared a little about how we developed the vision for our church that was approved at our annual meeting a couple of weeks ago. A vision being defined as our hopes and our dreams for our future. Much of this vision was actually determined 7 or 8 years ago when the church decided to stay a downtown church and serve the constituency here. It is a vision based upon the passage you heard this morning, which reflects, in my opinion, most fully Jesus’ call to the church. In fact he suggests that our wholeness depends upon this teaching of reaching out to the least of these my brothers and sisters. Least does not mean those least significant in their personhood, but those who have received the least of the blessings of God in their lives. We have chosen to be a Beacon of Hope to those Jesus’ tells us need us the most. But as it usually happens spiritually, that when we seek to embrace those most in need with our care, we are the ones who are saved. We are the ones who experience the deepest depths of our humanity, and know ourselves most fully alive. Please hear this. When we reach out to those who are most in need, we are the ones who are saved, as we are the ones who experience the deepest parts of our humanity. This is why people will drive by other churches to be a part of this congregation. Our location provides us the greatest opportunities to not only be a Beacon of Hope to others, but to touch the depths of our personhood by doing it.

Now, let’s look at the heart of the visioning process. A vision is only as good as our ability to bring it to life. Our ability to make hopes and dreams come true. This is what I want to address today. The leadership at the visioning retreat spent a lot!! of time discerning some of the current realities of the church and where we wanted to grow and become more affective. We discovered 9 areas that were important to the life and ministry of our church. We were able to take these 9 areas and unite them in the acronym C.H.R.I.S.T. We, in essence, defined for ourselves what it will mean to be the body of Christ scripture calls us to be. This is what you see on the insert and up on the screen.

We did not believe we could focus on all the streams of growth fully at one time, so we prioritized our dreams over the next 3-5 years, while remembering the Holy Spirit of God does not guide us by rigid plans, but by the deepest needs to be met in our world. So we understand that our priorities need to be guides and not hard and fast rules to live by. The priorities we have chosen to be most focused on this year are: hospitality, a part of the “H” in the acronym; the “I” as intergenerational belonging, and the “T” the together sharing the joy of giving. The T” is significant for several reasons, both of which have already been addressed over the past two weeks. Last week when we talked about the church being the body of Christ as we reflected upon the words of Paul in I Corinthians 12. All are gifted and all have a vocation and the church is only the fully functioning body of Christ when we are all utilizing our gifts and talents. The second is what I opened with, which is we are the ones who are saved when we live our calling. It is in that salvation we experience our deepest joy. For these reasons, we are committed to designing a Discipling process that can meet each of us where we are at this moment in our spiritual journey to help us move more fully into our calling as the body of Christ. We know that we can only provide the path, and that each of us has to choose to walk it ourselves. We are committed to providing many doorways and entryways for all to take this journey.

The “I” came after much discussion, sometimes very passionate discussion. The goal here is that every group or generation of people who attend this church will find something specifically for them that will enable them to take that journey I just talked about. It is an important priority as generationally we have different needs and goals. When I was working on my doctorate, I was supposed to go back to my home church and do a project and write a paper on multiculturalism. I was stumped for a couple of days as to how I was going to do this, as the church I served was totally Caucasian and the community it served had a very small percentage of ethnic groups. Finally it struck me that my church and all churches today are truly multi-cultural, but not necessarily because of ethnic diversity. We are multi-cultural generationally. There are times I do not have a clue as to what my daughters are talking about or where a certain value or world-view has come from. My guess is that many of you, especially those of you who have grandchildren, feel much the same way. As the vision statement says, we are a diverse body, and it is Christ that unites us. And sometimes it feels it is only Christ who can.

A deep motivation for this priority is we, as the church, claim to be a family oriented community. But when you look at our life, it often does not reflect this. As you watch a family move from the car to the church, often the children head off the Church School, mom and dad head to the sanctuary or to their own class. When worship and or the classes are over they meet back at the car to go home. I am not suggesting this is wrong, but we felt there is so much more we can do to help foster relationships for everyone. The presentation by David last week for Big Brothers was indeed part of the sermon, in that it presented one way we can connect generationally. We know that many people live some distance from their families and would love to have a chance to work with children, and yes, even youth. In my own family, Nancy’s mom and dad live in Texas, and my mother died 30 years ago. So our girls do not live close to or even have any grandparents. This is the very first church that they have not adopted grandparents for themselves. We are in the process of setting up the Confirmation class for next year. One of the tasks ahead is to recruit mentors for the youth taking the class. We, they, need the wisdom and guidance from those who can help them along this part of their discipling journey. There are so many ways that we can design the life of our church if we only stop and think about it, where we can truly deepen the relationships and bring life to us all as we find ways to be fully in community together.

Let me quickly look at the “H” of hospitality to show how these goals are already producing some pointed and useful discussions. We all know that being warm and welcoming is a very important attribute in a congregation for those looking for a community of faith to be a part of. We have already had some wonderful discussions about how we can improve our hospitality. There are some basic things we can do right now, right after this worship that can be very important. There are some general rules we can practice. There is the 5 minute rule. This suggests that every one of us should not run to talk to someone we know well, or someone we need to do a little work with for 5 minutes after a service ends. We should each find someone we know is a first time worshipper, or someone we have not yet met or know very well and engage them in conversation. Another rule that is similar is the 10 foot rule. After the service look around and then engage yourself in a conversation with the person you know least well in a ten foot radius around you. These are some simple things we can implement in about 5 minutes. We are talking about recruiting and training people to help us be better hosts. Being a good host is described as making someone feel at home. So we can greet the angels who come into our midst. We are beginning to implement this goal.

The discussion has also identified some roadblocks to helping us become more welcoming. We recognize, especially now that it is getting colder, that we really do not have a fellowship space we can gather to after a service to engage in conversation. We have brainstormed some in trying to address this, and even voted to take out the back 5-6 rows of chairs on my left, so you could come back in here after getting coffee and chat for awhile. Or at least until we throw you out so we can start second service. Yet, it’s hard to lose 40-50 seats when that is about all that are empty on many Sundays. So we have asked ourselves the question, what can we do in the near future that can help us create fellowship space? I do not know where the discussion will lead us, if anywhere. But our vision has already created a much needed dialogue about our immediate needs to find space for fellowship and extending our welcoming ability.

I share all of this, as I hope it reassures you that this vision has already begun to be implemented and give us direction. I share it, as I hope it starts to help you get a little excited about what we are doing and where we are headed. But I also share it, for in each goal, I hope you have heard how you are an integral part of achieving it. From hospitality to discipleship, if we are indeed going to be the fully functioning body of C.H.R.I.S.T. you are and must be a part of the vision. You are an integral part of our church’s goal to be a Beacon of Hope, to our community, and to each other. It is indeed only Together that we can make this happen.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on November 18, 2007.