Not everyone may have the gift of hospitality, but as speaker and writer, Jen Schmidt, discusses in this video, everyone is called to pursue hospitality.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
I’m often told when I tell someone that I just wrote a book and a Bible study on hospitality, they say, “Oh that’s so nice, but I just don’t have the gift of hospitality.” And then I pause and I ask them to sit down around the table with a good ole cup of coffee and I say, “Let’s talk about what you think hospitality is.”
Because when we look at Romans, Romans 12:13 says, “pursue hospitality”.
Here’s where I put my teacher shoes on for those grammar gurus. Pursue is an active and an ongoing verb. It’s something that says we’re to be pursuing continually, in action. It doesn’t say anywhere, “pursue hospitality if your kids are grown and you have a wonderful afternoon off”. It doesn’t say, “pursue hospitality if you have a two story house and beautifully decorated furniture”. It just says, “pursue hospitality”.
So what does that look like to you in your season of life? Because everyone, whether we’re an extrovert or an introvert, whether we’re working full-time or whether we’re at home, He’s called us and equipped us and given us specific gifts that we can use when we’re pursuing hospitality.
So that might be opening the door and inviting someone to come into my house. And a lot of times it means opening my door and saying, (gasps) “Okay, let me move the laundry basket over on the sofa and I’ll clean off a spot for you.” Or it might look like taking our hospitality on the go and inviting someone to the coffee shop.
Because, you know, Jesus took His hospitality on the go a lot of times. He used simple invitations. Nothing big and dramatic. Nothing overwhelming like big, long dinner parties. He just said, “Come and eat. Come sit with Me. Follow Me.”
So let’s look at the ultimate hospitality guru, Jesus, Who, when we think about it, He didn’t necessarily have a home. He was essentially homeless. But He took His hospitality on the go.
So we are to pursue hospitality in easy, tangible ways. Inviting people into our lives. And that can be vulnerable, because a lot of times when we invite them into our lives, we’re inviting them into our home and our stories. And our stories are messy. But that’s where I see Jesus show up in such powerful ways.
So, pursue hospitality, share your story, taste and see that the Lord is good. Because it’s all about Him.
