Pastoral Ministry

10 Habits of Hospitality

I know that some of you are reading this and the idea of opening your home to others seems like a terrifying chore. I want you to see it as a blessed opportunity. Our open-door policy has created numerous opportunities for us to show the love of Christ to others. Our house has been a refuge for the broken and a hospital for sinners. Our home has been a counseling office and a cooking school. It has also been a play-place for kids and an emergency bathroom. But, in each of those ways, God has used our home to bless others and in so doing has blessed our family.

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Preach Christ

Jesus is enough to carry and sustain the worn-out souls of your hearers. They come to the altar of God’s word week in and week out to be refreshed and encouraged. You have been given the gift of preaching for the edifying—the building up—of your local church. They come in beat-down and tired. The worries of financial strife, the struggles of wayward children, the back-biting of a secular workplace, and the thorns and thistles of sinful creation all work in a sort of unholy symphony to burden God’s image-bearers. Given the opportunity, this unholy symphony will actually drown out the siren call of Calvary.

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Preach With Tenderness

We must preach with the broken in mind. There are prideful men and women in every congregation that need to hear the stinging words of rebuke directed toward Pharisees, but there are also men who have been destroyed by demons and women who have been abused by men. Jesus met a woman by a well in Samaria. She was an outcast who bounced from house to house. We don’t know her whole story, but it is possible that in our day and time she might be known by a different term: abuse survivoror even trafficking victim. We know is that as Jesus looked at this woman, he saw something different than everyone else who looked at her. Jesus saw her as a broken person in need of a savior. He didn’t paper over her sin as though it didn’t exist, but he didn’t discount her struggles and pain either. Jesus was honest and forthright, but he was compassionate and kind. He preached the gospel to her with tenderness and compassion. The Shepherd of Israel found a wayward sheep and lovingly brought her into the fold.

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