14.10 How to hospitality: boundaries

A strong warning: if we are to leap, trusting the Lord’s kindness and provision, into a lifestyle of connecting with those around us, we need to be aware that we live in a fallen world...

A strong warning: if we are to leap, trusting the Lord’s kindness and provision, into a lifestyle of connecting with those around us, we need to be aware that we live in a fallen world, among sinful people (ourselves included). It is not safe to throw open the doors of your home and broadcast that you and your family are now - permanently and without boundaries - available to all comers.

Plans fail when we forget to take into account fallen, limited human nature. You must consider your safety, and your children’s safety. Yes, God will provide so we need not fear being generous, but we must be wise with fallen human nature. Please keep in mind that Signpost Inn is not preaching a gospel of instant communal utopia. The gospel does not necessarily come with a house key.

We have been in ministry for 20 years of person-to-person conversation and incarnate welcome, so I speak from real success and failure. We have met many people, and many kinds of people. We have made the mistake of assuming too much good from some people, and we have offered welcome to others without firm enough boundaries.  I know now to operate by Jesus’ rules, not my own. In his love and grace and in Christian freedom, hospitality becomes human-sized, human-shaped, human-proportioned. Incarnate. I am not God. I am only human. And he does not require me to save the world.

First - The 5 Elements

Reference the 5 elements with which I started this section “for scale”. We little humans do little things. God makes them great or keeps them small according to his will. But we have short days, little stomachs, and a brief attention span. Hospitality is human-sized. You share what you have and who you are. 

For those who try to do everything: If you have a fever, you cannot offer to babysit. If your bank account is empty, you cannot give $1,000 to the best cause on earth. Your day is 24 hours long. You do not have 26 hours a day to give.

For those who want to support hospitality, but have not yet found the way: consider the 5 elements above - perhaps there is a way to start very small. A guest, a space, a time frame, a consumable, an activity. Can you be the guest and look for these elements? Can you write out a sample plan and imagine carrying it out within these boundaries?