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ValleyChat
The official podcast of Shepherd of the Desert Church, Scottsdale, Arizona. Faith, life, and wisdom in the Valley of the Sun.
ValleyChat
More Than a Warm Welcome: Exploring the Depths of Christian Hospitality
Ever wondered why some churches seem to inherently draw you in, making you feel seen, heard, and comfortable? In our latest Shepherd podcast Pastors John Karolus and Scott Seidler, unfold the intriguing concept of Christian hospitality and its quintessential role in fostering a warm environment within our church spaces. From our years of experience, we delve into how this divine virtue extends beyond mere cordiality; it's about creating an ambiance where every individual feels valued and respected.
We also tackle the fascinating dynamic between different worship styles and hospitality. Liturgical or charismatic, every worship style comes with its unique ambiance, and we share our insights about how these can sometimes inadvertently alienate newcomers. Drawing from our own experiences, we reveal how creating an environment of spaciousness in worship services can make a world of difference, allowing for fruitful engagement and a welcoming atmosphere for new members.
But hospitality isn't just about openness; it's also about having clear boundaries. In the concluding segment of this episode, we venture into the oft-overlooked aspect of setting appropriate boundaries within the realm of hospitality. We address some tough questions about vulnerability and trust, underscoring the necessity of clear lines for facilitating a hospitable environment. Wrapping up, we remind ourselves of the biblical call to hospitality and discuss practical ways we can embody this call in our 21st-century lives. Join us on this enlightening journey as we strive to become more hospitable followers of Jesus.
Hi everyone, welcome back to our Shepherd podcast, pastor John Corollus. Here with Pastor Scott Seidler, and today we're talking about the importance of Christian hospitality. We'll, of course, be speaking from the perspective of trying to create a church that is characterized by hospitality when people experience our ministries, worship with us, walk with us. The hope is that in your own Christian living, and us individually, we can emulate and reflect some of that same idea because, theologically speaking, it's a critical part of what it means to be someone who follows Jesus to be hospitable. So, pastor Scott, when it comes to Christian hospitality or hospitality in general, what thoughts cross your mind?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the number one word is just be normal, do unto others. Right the golden rule do unto others as you would have done to yourself. Think about what it means for you to be received hospitably, how you enjoy being recognized and welcomed and feeling like you are not an intrusion in a person's life. And if you can make that judgment from your own point of view, you are at least on your way to being able to reciprocate. And so I'm always asking the question how would I want to be treated If I came into someone's house? Someone comes into my house, the church, my office. How would I want to be treated? And I try to reciprocate.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit like the conversations you have with people and there's different degrees to which you'll be honest and open with them. How long of an answer do you want when somebody says how are you doing today? Do they just want to be acknowledged that they've said something to you, you want to say something back and that's the end of the interaction? Or do they want you to sit down in your office or on your couch and actually listen to the things that are causing you stress, the things that are giving you joy and all of that thing?
Speaker 1:And I think, when you're not sure where you land with somebody, or maybe when you're in an environment like a church or visiting somebody's home for the first time or grabbing lunch with a colleague, the question before you is am I willing to entrust myself to this person? Do I really want them to know, maybe, the things that I'm cynical about or the things that I'm struggling with, or the things that are causing me a great deal of stress or suffering or whatever it might be? And the question is am I willing to take that next step with somebody? So, as you think about churches that have exhibited the kind of warmness, the kind of welcoming environment that allows someone to be themselves. What kind of things from your own life experience fill your mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think with the whole definition of hospitality. Hospitality takes time and you can't micro wave hospitality. Put that in your hopper. You can't fast cook hospitality.
Speaker 2:So a church or a person frankly there's no difference that wants to show hospitality, you have to create some level and allow for some level of spaciousness as people come in. Hospitable is not rushing them through the narthex. Here's the bulletin Go, sit down. It is the ability to linger with them and to be patient. If there's someone, for instance, that comes into church and I'm out there greeting at 9.29 and I know I've got one minute left until I'm supposed to be upfront leading worship, I make a mental note in my mind that if I am 30 seconds late, nobody's going to care. And the people who do care I've made the judgment they can care, but I'm not going to care about their caring, because what I'm not going to do is microwave the hospitality for this new visitor that just came in and is trying to get accommodated to this very new worship location that they have entrusted the care of their souls to. So that, for me, is a word that is put alongside hospitality and that is the word spaciousness.
Speaker 1:There's definitely that sort of I'm going to create space for you. I want this to be a space you feel comfortable in kind of element to it, and I think there's also an interesting kind of two-part, two-way street, part of hospitality as well, where hospitality and home-ness is something that we actually have to both contribute effort to, both put time toward, both put trust toward. And we, of course, we want to be the ones that go first, we want to be the ones that personally, as Christians and also just as leaders of a church, we want to create an environment where we'll say, hey, we're willing to take the first step, we're willing to open ourselves up. We want this to be a place where you feel you can do the same and then we can continue to grow our relationships so that there's a meaningful support here, meaningful encouragement here, a meaningful home.
Speaker 2:And don't you think, john? When I look at churches broadly across all denominations, there seems to me to be like a competing interest at work. And on the one side there are churches who want to show lavish hospitality to the guest, to the visitor, to the parishioner. On the other side there are churches that want to show lavish hospitality to the presence of God in the work of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes what I find is that it's in either or, as opposed to a both. And those churches that show lavish hospitality seem too casual on welcoming God. Those churches that are maybe what we call high church and anxiety, written about all kinds of liturgical detail, seem blindly unaware of the visitor. I mean, just speak a little bit to that from your own point of view, because you've been raised in a time within our Lutheran denomination where, it seems to me, the trend is more toward the liturgical, welcoming God side of hospitality and we're forgetting the fact that we're still human beings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a thought provoking question and one that just I mean, when you're speaking, this idea jump to mind.
Speaker 1:And then I wanted to hear the rest of your question and understand that, like you know, we're coming from a context where there is that strange kind of competing theological interpretive difference where and this is how sometimes I try to describe denominational differences to people that maybe don't have a lot of church background you know, when you come into our church this is what it's going to be like.
Speaker 1:But you have to understand we're coming at it from this mindset, from this belief, from this background and foundation, and maybe what you are used to or what you've experienced before is coming at it from a different presupposition, from a different set of values, from a different background. For me, I've always been raised in churches that had kind of multiple worship styles, and so there was no strangeness to that for me. It just made sense that people had a choice before them as to what kind of worship service they wanted to do, and that's, of course, a pretty large step toward accommodating the visitor, accommodating the person sitting in the pew, but I never thought that there was a dismissal of this idea that we're also welcoming God to be among us. And what's interesting is that in our denomination right, high church, high liturgical art, high vestments, high church you know to use a crass word for decorations you know these kinds of things that all have a great deal of meaning and significance.
Speaker 2:But if you're uninitiated, that's a puzzle, it's meaningful, it's exclusionary, it's confusing, yeah, and that's where hospitality then starts to break down.
Speaker 1:I would say there is, though, on in other denominational circumstances, where churches that are extremely highly charismatic, where they would overtly say we are here to welcome the presence of God and we just want to be bystander. In the midst of that, there is a similar effort toward the kind of experience both places are trying to have, whether it be from the incense and smoke filling the, the nave, or the fog machines filling the, the arena, or whatever. Both of these worship styles are curating a kind of worship experience that makes it clear that the person walking in is is actually there just to see what's happening and watch.
Speaker 2:It is fascinating to me that one of the fastest growing denominations in our country is the assemblies of God and, frankly, like I am scared to death to go into an assemblies of God church, not because of anything, you know any judgment about the people, but because I do not practice the miraculous gifts of speaking in tongues. I am literally scared to death going in there and feeling like, because of that very literally vocal presence of God, that I'm going to be like sticking out like a sore thumb. You know, here's the mute guy standing in the back while everybody else is in the midst of a charismatic experience. You know, but it but you're right, it crosses. It's not just liturgical worship that can be exclusionary or you know different, it's also the charismatic side, fascinating.
Speaker 1:And that's where that background mindset you know it's coming from the same value in pursuit of this worship experience. That's like that and, you're right, it contrasts against the one that just wants to make you comfortable with being in the room. We want you to have coffee and snacks available to you before you exit the parking lot and come into the lobby or the narthex. We want to make sure that there's somebody who has greeted you and you've been met five times, six times before you've sat down in the pew that you've got literature and digital resources already in hand and in mind as you're waiting for the service to start. And kind of going that far forward into hospitality as making somebody who hasn't been there before feel like they have no questions about what's going on.
Speaker 1:Where we see this, I think for me in our contemporary setting in Mountain View, the kind of tension I feel is when people come in there's we're in this contemporary setting. It's kind of the theater style worship space, and so when we sing some songs that elicit emotional reactions and so people that get into worship in that way may raise their hands in worship, which, for our traditional, more liturgical settings, is not really a part of it. If anything it's about actually. You know genuflecting, getting lower to the ground. You know trying to almost keep those things right.
Speaker 1:Right and keep those things hidden. And so I. The tension I feel is how do I encourage an environment where someone like me, who just raising my hands was not a part of my worship life as a child, as a young adult now, and so it would be. You know it would be disingenuous to raise my hands right. But also I don't want someone to feel like they're not allowed to. And then in our traditional setting where we distribute communion around the chancel, around the rail, the communion rail and you do it too, I'm sure as a pastor, standing up there at the altar, you're looking around and noticing who is watching the crowd to figure out what's the communion process.
Speaker 1:How does this work at this church? Because it's different everywhere. It's exactly right and it's a puzzle. And so those are the places where I think, as a church, we see the opportunity to try and communicate around hospitality. Hey, wherever you land on raising your hands or keeping them down, wherever you land on how your home church distributes communion, how can we create a place where you don't feel embarrassed or you don't feel pressure in the midst of those?
Speaker 2:environments. Yeah well, and again, for me it comes down to spaciousness. How much are you trying to pack into, you know, this hour long worship service? If I go into again to use an example, that is not our Lutheran church if I go into an Assemblies of God church and for a straight hour they are talking in tongues, there is no ability for me to participate meaningfully in that. So you know, I'm sure that does not happen.
Speaker 2:By the way, I'm sure that if I would go into an Assemblies of God Church there would be that time of charismatic expression, but then there would probably also be spaciousness for a word of welcome from the pastor, orientation to how to become a more participating member of the congregation, those kinds of things. And I think the same then holds true, you know, coming back into our Lutheran tradition, which is, look, if we're going to essentially do a replication of the high Roman mass from beginning to end, with all the parts and pieces, that does not allow for a lot of spaciousness for just normal welcoming and greeting and conversational kind of engagement with the congregation. And so you know, that's where, here at Shepherd, we're always trying to find the balance of we will be liturgical but we're not going to be liturgical to the point that I don't have the opportunity to meaningfully kind of come down off the pedestal and just say, hey, welcome, I'm Scott. I'm the same guy in front as I am in the back and would love to be able to talk with you over coffee and so on and so forth. So I think for me the takeaway is spaciousness, both personally making space time, emotionally being able to welcome.
Speaker 2:And if I ask you how you're doing and you go into some long diatribe, I'm not sitting there looking at my watch like, oh gosh, how long is this going to take? Finish it up, people. I got to move along with my life Emotionally available, physically, time wise available, and you're on your way to at least having a chance to show hospitality to whoever you're talking to. What about you? What's your takeaway?
Speaker 1:Big takeaway for me is, yeah, how can I have a conversation with somebody that kind of proves to them that this is a time to be together where we can? You know we actually believe what's happening here, right, like this, is something we're just going through the motions, you know, we're not up there kind of just practicing or watching the band perform a song, but it's something that we can participate in, whether it's quietly, silently, on our own, or loudly, proudly, hands held high, having an emotional moment. And then also exactly having the time and space before church starts, after the service is over, to gather on the patio or grab a cup of coffee and sit down and say, hey, how has it been since your mom's moved into memory care, or how is the recovery from that procedure going? You know, did you make the golf team? All that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:You know, giving space for meaningful connection, because I think, theologically speaking, scripturally speaking, when we look at what Jesus' ministry did functionally, how he connected with people, how he spoke with authority but then exhibited the truths behind that teaching into the lives and connections he was making, is super important. Before we end, I would love to hear kind of just from your own personal, whether it's life experience, church experience. What are one or two of the hospitable moments or maybe lack of hospitality you've experienced that influence your creation of hospitality today?
Speaker 2:Yes, well, first number one would be Pastor Jim Rienz, who, in my childhood congregation, peace Lutheran Church in Morris, illinois, pastor Rienz would go to Great Lakes to know everybody's name and it was a large church you know about, I don't know, 800,000 members by the time he retired from that congregation. And whenever you came home from college, he was a very committed personality and he would, you know, just bam, shake your hand, squeeze your hand. You'd be like, oh, I'm dying here, but he knew your name. And not only that, but you know, before or during the service, if he felt there was something out of place, especially the temperature of the room, he would walk down the side aisle at 100 miles an hour, he'd futz with the you know, analog thermostat and then he'd go back up into the chancel. And I always thought about that because in my early ministry, because I wanted to show that same level of environmental awareness, so that there was nothing distracting from the experience of worship, and so that would be my number one thing.
Speaker 2:And the second thing from my mentor, dave Cook, who is a senior pastor at St Luke and Arbor. He was in the middle of a huge building program and we would meet monthly at the Jade Palace or something like that, jade Gardens, and I would just ask him all manner of question about you know, his ministry and what's it like to be a senior pastor, and this, that the other, and, and he would pour out his heart. You know, he just shared exactly what was happening and I remember he told the story about getting into a very animated let's put it that way conversation with his worship director who had dropped the speaker array about six feet above the altar in their new sanctuary and it was. It was acoustically the place that it needed to be, but it was absolutely garish in being that close to the altar. And so he was telling me about how he finally just had to simply say that speaker array is going up 10 feet, and I don't care how it sounds, because we are not going to compromise the vision of this altar space that we're spending millions of dollars building, because there's a speaker array appropriately placed six feet above the Lord's Supper. I mean, it was so funny listening to him talk and he was so wise and he was generally so patient and calm, but he was so intense about making sure that there was spaciousness for everything and that nothing felt compressed or out of place. Those are my two stories.
Speaker 2:What about you? Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I think, relationally there's there's a, there's a development point where you're willing to hear, you know somebody who's who's known for being a hospitable person, a personable, gentle, kind, welcoming, friendly person. And yet every single human being gets frustrated about things. And for someone with that kind of personality when, when, when you work with them, walk with them long enough, where now they're able to share the things that frustrate them in an honest way, you know, not in an angry or you know, kind of a problematic way, but in a friendly way and able just to share burdens together, that's a. That's a cool thing, that's a really important thing.
Speaker 1:Personally, I think of the just the, the, the angle that my parents Raised us in as far as how to use the space God had given them in their home, and throughout my childhood and and even into my Adult years after I'd gone to college, they were always willing to house somebody if they needed a place to be, whether it be a Family member who was traveling during the week but kind of needed a safe place away from home over the weekend, who would travel through town and stop and, you know, be with us for a few days at a time, or even you know somebody who needed three months of housing because they're facing some difficult personal circumstances and needed to be somewhere, being willing to Welcome them into our world and then living honestly with them there, you know, and being okay with the fact of hey, we know we're gonna be living alongside each other my dad still has pastoral Responsibilities is to be in and out of the house.
Speaker 1:You know, at different times, as the primary spiritual caretaker, that kind of thing, you know, have to go to the nursing home or to the hospital at all manners of the day. Well, also trying to balance, you know, well, this is an independent adult living with us. You know, not having to give them a curfew but also trying to figure out courteousness. But that that commitment they had to being generous with their space was something that continues to have an influence on me and I'm trying to. You know, our hope is that we can apply these things into our church experience. But I think both of our encouragement to anyone listening is what is the way your life can begin to be shaped by the hospitality that Jesus Displaced and Jesus even encourages, and I would say go so far as to command he, he, he teaches us to be welcoming people, to be people that are willing to go first and open the door and Create a possibility for connection with others that they might experience through us is love in his connection for sure.
Speaker 2:You know. There's that passage in Hebrews, chapter 13, where the writer encourages the reader to show hospitality to visitors Because by doing so you may entertain and this great phrase, angels. Unaware that idea that the the most majestic spiritual beings May be, in some disguised form, the ones that are seeking your welcome, the spaciousness of your emotions and your time. That's a pretty profound word and that's a pretty late word, by the way, and in scripture, hebrews 13, the book of Hebrews, is a late book in the canon of scripture, so that that issue of hospitality seems to be on a crescendo, on a rise through the New Testament and Hopefully, in our 21st century moment, we can even show greater hospitality than was envisioned there.
Speaker 1:I think, the crescendo of the need of hospitality. I think that's so true and so important for us to keep in mind, not only Church-wise, but also just so personally, in our relationships with the people God has us already connected to. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes of today, for today's podcast. We hope that this is encouraging and supportive for you and we look forward to digging into deeper issues with you next time, which maybe is you know we're gonna talk about what are those times when you have to kind of draw the line. What is it? What is it about hospitality? That sometimes you need to draw very clear boundaries around? You know what, if someone has transgressed some of those things and hospitality is no longer an option, right, that happens. That's real life. So next time we'll talk more about some of those tougher issues as tougher situations, but in the meantime, god bless you and we'll we'll connect with you next time that we can connect.