Helpful resources on hospitality
As we spend the year focused on growing in being a more loving, welcoming, and hospitable church, I want to encourage you to continue reading and growing on your own or in your small groups throughout the year. Below are some additional resources that I have found valuable with respect to hospitality and community, many of which were used for our most recent series “Welcome!”.
The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak & Dave Runyon
“But we do know this about love: to love someone, it helps to actually know their name.”
“If we live out the Great Commandment, an environment is created where the Great Commission can be effectively obeyed.”
Becoming a Welcoming Church by Them Rainer
“Will your facilities say, ‘welcome’ or ‘we don’t care’?”
Community and Growth by Jean Vanier
“Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren’t afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.”
The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield
“Radically ordinary hospitality is this: using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.”
The Intentional Christian Community Handbook by David Janzen
“We serve soup to the poor folks on the other side of the tracks, but we don’t know the person on the other side of our fence.”
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”
Living into Community by Christine Pohl
“Hospitality is at the heart of Christian life, drawing from God’s grace and reflecting God’s graciousness. In hospitality, we respond to the welcome that God has offered and replicate that welcome to the world.”
Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen
“Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them a space where change can take place.”