September 8, 2016
“LISTEN! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.” —Revelation 3:20
As a church, we have certain responsibilities in regard to hospitality. We need to keep our doors open. We need to remember that the table we lay is not laid with our supper, but the Lord’s Supper. In fact, these responsibilities are not just “responsibilities”—the case is more urgent than that! Welcoming strangers is an of prudence, because we believe that our Lord is returning and we don’t know when He comes.
The knock on the door that we don’t answer—that could be Him. He could be the stranger who we forget to greet.
Pastor Jason keeps the door wide open for worship.
This month, Galilee Church begins a new worship series called Welcome: Hospitality of the Heart.
“The radical hospitality that we are called to demonstrate is like everything in our faith,” says our senior pastor, Jason Duley. “It’s not just a good idea. It’s not even, primarily, our idea. It’s a response.”
“Hospitality is our response to God’s grace. Each of us must be struck by grace: God accepts us! Not some improved idea of us, an us that we are working on, but us! We’re accepted no matter what our flaws and sins. The grace that God has shown each of us is a model demonstrating the eager embrace of the outsider.”
“We’ve got to respond by showing our own readiness to accept without judgement. We need to equip ourselves and our church with a welcoming attitude that goes beyond the ordinary.”
“God-influenced welcoming is an intentional openness to the presence of others. That means, first, that you want to love. You seek ways to connect. You are prepared to initiate and ready to build relationships. You store love away by being in prayer with the source of love. That love is going to be the energy that opens doors, that breaks down social barriers.”
“The message of Welcome, our worship series, is that God’s love extends to all of us. Isn’t that the greatest, and most unconditional welcome?”
The Welcome series will last for three weeks:
- September 11 – “Open Doors, Making Friends”
We love each other because He loved us first. (1 John 4:19) - September 18 – “Open Heart, Spirit Friends”
Amongst strangers, Abraham encounters God. (Genesis 18:1-8) - September 25 – “Open Spirit, Open Arms”
A poor widow welcomes a stranger, offering her meager rations, and God provides for all her needs. (1 Kings 17:9-16)
Robert Schnase’s Receiving God’s Love: The Practice of Radical Hospitality and Henry G. Brinton’s The Welcoming Congregation are excellent companion books for this worship series.