Radical Hospitality Changes Everything . . .

"Hospitality is the practice that keeps the church from becoming a club, a members-only society.  Through hospitality, historian Rowan Greer claims, 'an inclusive ideal of community life is affirmed, and we may suppose that implementing this ideal was no easier in the ancient world than in ours.'  In greeting, meeting, eating, and caring, the church acted as a community with its arms open, attracting inquirers through a practical demonstration of God's love. 'Observe, the hospitality here spoken of,' preached John Chrysostom, 'is not merely a friendly reception, but one given with zeal and alacrity, with readiness, as going about it as if one were receiving Christ himself.'  From what historians can gather, hospitality-not martyrdom - served a the main motivator for conversions.