Hospitality: A Program or a Presence?

As noted earlier, I spent July 10-17 with ten other people from our church on a volunteers in mission work trip to the Dominican Republic.  We came alongside Dominican and Haitian church people to work on a small place of worship for a new church start in a community called Samangola.  There's a tendency on the part of international work campers, I know, to over-idealize the cultures they encounter.  I don't want to fall prey to that.  However, even from an objective view, we were blessed and graced beyond measure by the people we encountered and the people with whom we had the privilege of working.  And we realized that they had so, so much from which we could learn.

One of those areas of learning was hospitality.  I am blessed to be a part of a church here that works hard on practicing "radical hospitality."  Our congregation has improved in welcomeness by leaps and bounds, and I am so proud of our staff, leaders, and church folks who go out of their way to make the needs of a newcomer more important than their own.  Many established churches struggle to break outside their own closed circles of relationship, and I'm glad to be a part of church people who are eager and willing to raise the bar on hospitality.  However, in our admittedly limited experience of the Jesus-followers of Bani, San Cristobal, San Rafael, and Samangola, hospitality there is not a program, an emphasis, a committee, or a spot on an organizational chart.  It is the air they breathe.  It is the rhythm of their collective heartbeat.  It is a Presence that is undeniable.  The hospitality extended to us and to those in their own culture they seek to reach for Jesus is hard to describe.  It is genuine, warm, unconditional, and energizing all at the same time.  They offer it effortlessly and joyfully.

I found myself wondering why it is this way.  Why do we read books about hospitality, have training programs on hospitality, create hospitality teams, and give instructions on hospitality, while they just live it like it's their own skin?  I'm not sure sure I know the answer, but I intend to find out.  I find myself wanting to go back and just live in their church culture for a time, maybe to absorb how the welcomeness with which Jesus welcomes us all becomes so second nature.

A couple of times in the last week people in are area have asked me, "Are you glad to be back in civilization?"   Trust me, in the area of Christ-like hospitality, many of the Dominican and Haitian Jesus-followers are the "civilized" ones, and I am the "third world" who needs to benefit from them.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Watch Those Bumps in the Road!

I suppose people in general have the right to assume that "bumps" in the road of life are always an interference, a frustration, a temporary setback, or something to overcome.  Followers of Jesus don't have that luxury.  We have to stay open to the possibility that some "bumps" along life's highway indicate the activity of an involved God.

Eleven people from our church spent July 10-17 in the Dominican Republic, the nation that shares a Caribbean island with Haiti.  We worked in a community called Samangola, alongside people from churches in Bani and San Rafael.  Our task was to help in the completion of a simple church building in Samangola, the home of a new congregation there.  For four days we painted, shoveled base gravel, and mixed and loaded concrete.  The church seeks to evangelize among the poor of the Dominican, which includes both Dominican people and people of Haitian descent.  In particular, church leaders seek to reach children.

The bulk of the group planned to fly out of Miami to Santo Domingo on June 9.  (I would catch up with them on the 10th.)  However, the landed in Miami only to find that their flight had been cancelled.  The airline scrambled to reroute them, eventually putting them up in a hotel for the night.  The next day the airline sent them to Santa Domingo - by way of New York City!  (Airlines don't care about geography - just schedules!)  At the time the team thought it was a mild inconvenience at worst and a funny story to tell eventually at best. 

But God was up to something.  The group had several duffel bags of shoes and baseball equipment to distribute in the DR.  Shipping cost was sizable for these items, but our church had been generous in support of the entire project.  As a result of the flight inconvenience, an official of the airline decided to waive shipping costs on all the duffel!   As a result, this leveraged several hundred more dollars to be put into the new church's ministry in Samangola.  A "bump" in the road turned out to be something that furthered the cause of leading people in new life with Jesus.

Don't be too quick to assume that all the bumps in your life's road are bad.  Consider the possibility that God may be at work.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

The Next Person You Encounter - Closer to Jesus or Farther Away, Because of You!

Here's how it happened...Not too many years ago a woman named Tracy found the courage to go to a worshipping fellowship. As she describes it, her way of life and her appearance did not fit the mold of most "churchy" people in North America.  However, instead of looking at her with judgment or disdain, the people of that congregation chose to welcome her without question.  Tracy experienced grace there before she experienced anything else.  Thus began Tracy's walk with Jesus and major transformation in her life.

In the course of her journey Tracy met a man named Darryl, a former Major League Baseball star.  The met in a rehabilitation program, as Darryl also had demons in his life with which to contend.  Darryl, notes that he gave his life to Jesus in 1991, but very little changed.  As he says, he was not "discipled."  He did not yield his life to the Holy Spirit fully, and did not have the support, encouragement, training, and accountability of the Body of Christ.  So his life continued to tailspin.  It took Tracy (now his wife) and other followers of Jesus to help Darryl live his commitment to Jesus in 24/7 discipleship.  Darryl and Tracy are now powerful ambassadors for new life in Jesus.

In 2011 Darryl and Tracy happened to be out for dinner one evening at a restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri.  A worship director at a southeast Missouri church and his wife happened to be at a table nearby.  Introductions, conversations, and faith-sharing led to an invitation to speak at a major regional outreach and service event in the Spring of 2012.  Darryl and Tracy accepted.

At the event, Darryl shared from his own experience about the need to be discipled in addition to the need to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.  In the audience was a young man named Wade.  Wade's life was at a low ebb.  Having surrendered to Jesus many times, he consistently defaulted back to addiction and destructive behaviors.  Darryl's words convicted him to finally submit to the reshaping power of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.  Wade now meets weekly with a men's prayer, Bible study, encouragement, and accountability group.  Wade will share his testimony of the transformational change of the Holy Spirit in his life in the worship services at his church tomorrow.

Note this:  Had the people of that unnamed congregation years ago judged or dismissed Tracy instead of welcoming her, none of this might have happened.  The next person you encounter - whether someone you know or not, whether it's a lengthy encounter or not - that person will either be drawn closer to God or pushed farther from God because of YOU.  Choose wisely and choose with an eye to the role you may play in a tumble of lives changing!

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.