Helping Folks Stay At Your Church

Visitors, Hospitality, and the Place of the Gospel in Loving One Another

Good Morning,

I want to expand a little bit on a subject that might step on some toes. What we began to touch on last week is the power of the gospel of grace and the effect it has when we unleash it on the world. Sometimes people will ask me why Reformed churches seem to struggle so much in outreach. My general feeling on it is some of it is not our fault, yet a lot of it is. There is a sense in which we live in a culture that doesn’t major on commitments and isn’t super interested in putting in the effort that discipleship requires. The level of forgiveness, being open and honest, and dealing with matters with maturity. A lot of the “big box” churches around us are like going to see a film, and in that I don’t mean their worship spaces are black, dark, and highlight the front. What makes them like attending a movie theater is that there is not a lot required of you outside of appearing, enjoying the show, putting your ducats in the box, and going home. It’s hard to compete against that when Presbyterianism is more like coming into a Planet Fitness where there are going to be people helping out, training, with its own kind of fun, but you’ve got to put the miles in if you want to benefit from it. It’s not a passive movement. The Apostle Paul warned Timothy about this of course.

In today’s prayer and worship help we are going to spend the majority of our time looking at ourselves. There is a whole cottage industry in our circles of men who spend all their day on Twitter, FB, Discord, and YouTube making fun of and expressing concern about what’s going on in other parts of evangelicalism. To be fair, there is a lot to critique, and we should be willing to be honest about what the Lord calls us to be and to do in His praise and in His church. Yet, ball don’t lie. As D.L. Moody once said, “I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”. That line should sting a little. Kind of like the aforementioned workout routine we have an expanded waistline because we are not working out and limiting calories, and few people want to admit that to themselves. It’s easier to point fingers and wallow in our supposed superiority. Being right is good, but if don’t show it in love, there’s no point.

What is it that the big box non-denom do well that we don’t and what really is the secret sauce to their numerical success? Well, we’ve already noted the work-side, but what’s actually going on? It is not really rocket science. They do community a lot better than we do. When is the last time a visitor came into our sanctuary and they were spoken to, invited to lunch, made to feel like they are not a stranger, and not like an invader into a secret club? I don’t think there is anything natural to the Reformed faith that makes us act like that. Fear is probably too strong a word (or maybe it’s not). My sense is our reticence to be friendly comes more out of a lack of confidence in the good news of Jesus Christ than it does from any actual dislike of interlopers. The more we understand our own salvation, the more we allow ourselves to be saturated in grace, the easier we will find seeking and loving the lost, or even just the new person who wandered into our space.

You can see this in how the mother-in-law of Peter gets up after being healed by Jesus and goes directly into serving those around her. In the book of Acts immediately after coming to faith in the midst of gospel preaching Lydia opens her home to the church and ensures their needs are taken care of. When Paul writes his letter to Thessalonica he makes all people aware of how they outdo others in hospitality. He says, “But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.”. They seek to serve because the source of their service is not themselves, but the Redeemer who has served them unto eternal life. There is a joy and a comfort in the gospel that we witness to others in our openness.

What we are talking about here is not a personality trait per se. There are some people who are skilled with friendliness naturally, the kind of people who have never met a stranger. As someone who gets tagged with that notion it’s not something I’ve always been good at. Part of the reason I don’t mind going up to complete strangers is because of life experience. I moved around a lot as a kid so when we came to a new neighborhood I had to make friends if I wanted a human being to talk to, which is something I’ve never struggled with (big shock). There was growth going on and when it comes to our own hospitality in the church of Christ it is as much a work of growing in grace as any other spiritual gift. However, before we seek out help in doing it better, to go back to the D.L. Moody quote, we have to actually want to.

How does that happen?

Our puritan forefathers were convinced that all Christian activity began with the word of God. In it and through it is the power, and it is by the word that the Holy Spirit excites the heart to do the will of Him who sent us. We restrict the word faith too much in Romans 10 if we think Paul there is only talking about the day we first believe. Hunger for the Bible and a desire to apply what it teaches to real life is a grace in itself. (Eph. 2:10). If we want to get better at being happy to see visitors and be ready to meet them where they are then it is important that we begin with our own walk with Christ. If it seems like you don’t want to be at church, stand and put your hands in your pocket when it is time to sing, play on your phone during the sermon, and on top of it have the excitement of a kid at the dentist in worship than a guest is not going to think experiencing Bethany (or wherever) again is a good idea.

In closing, there are certain human emotions that are infectious. People can tell you love Jesus, not because you have a permanent smile or a fake wide-eyed face, but because He evidently means something to you. If they can tell that then the likelihood they ask about the hope that lies within you only can go up. Often we in the Reformed faith struggle where other churches thrive in the work of being willing to invite the unknown to become known for the simple reason that we don’t know why we are there, and we don’t really know why anyone else should be either. That must change.

Here’s another view:

https://www.nobts.edu/geauxtherefore/articles/2021/HospitalityNT.html

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church