Hos­pi­tal­ity is a cru­cial Chris­t­ian prac­tice with a long bib­li­cal his­tory, start­ing in the Old Tes­ta­ment where Abra­ham is pic­tured as the ideal host (Gen 18:1–8) and cul­mi­nat­ing in the New Tes­ta­ment exhor­ta­tions to prac­tice hos­pi­tal­ity found in Romans 12:13 and 1 Peter 4:9. After our recent move to Toronto my wife and I, how­ever, dis­cov­ered that many, if not most, churches in the Toronto area seem unpre­pared and per­haps even unwill­ing to wel­come the stranger in their midst. After our arrival we imme­di­ately began vis­it­ing con­gre­ga­tions, explor­ing where we might set­tle and live out our Chris­t­ian com­mit­ment. It was, alas, a largely dispir­it­ing exercise. 

Being with­out a church home is hard for us. We have been Chris­tians all our adult lives and know the value of being involved in con­gre­ga­tional life. Leav­ing our home church con­tributed to the stress of relo­ca­tion. We there­fore hoped to set­tle at a church sooner rather than later to help us adjust to our new sur­round­ings and deal with the strain of find­ing new friends, doc­tor, den­tist, gro­cery store, vet­eri­nar­ian, et cetera. Instead, our tran­si­tion was made more dif­fi­cult by the fact that most churches did not wel­come us or make us feel needed. Granted, this was only the expe­ri­ence of two sojourn­ers, but as we com­pared notes with other new arrivals we found that it was not nec­es­sar­ily an anomaly. 

Even though I am often a later adopter when it comes to tech­nol­ogy, I started our church explo­rations by search­ing the web. This was the most obvi­ous place where I could find churches that might be worth a visit and a rea­son­able dis­tance to travel. (My first choice would be to walk to church while the alter­na­tive would be a rea­son­able pub­lic tran­sit ride.) In spite of care­ful inter­net research, we, more than once, arrived at a church only to find that wor­ship was at a dif­fer­ent time than posted on the web­site. Although there were usu­ally other peo­ple around, they did not make apolo­gies for the mis­in­for­ma­tion nor engaged us in con­ver­sa­tion, fail­ing to take advan­tage of a good oppor­tu­nity to get to know some new­com­ers.  So we had to sit and wait, left to our­selves, for the hour or so until wor­ship began. We usu­ally hit the streets look­ing for coffee. 

When I gen­tly pointed out to church lead­ers that their ser­vice started at a dif­fer­ent time than posted, they turned the respon­si­bil­ity back to me: “Did you phone ahead to check?” There are two prob­lems with this response. Firstly, the pur­pose of a web­site is to give peo­ple accu­rate and reli­able infor­ma­tion since it is the pri­mary place that peo­ple look these days. Sec­ondly, phon­ing did not nec­es­sar­ily yield bet­ter results. Often no one answered the phone and answer­ing machine mes­sages were not nec­es­sar­ily up to date. They too pro­vided inac­cu­rate information. 

Once one arrived at church, there were other obsta­cles to join­ing in wor­ship. For exam­ple, how were we to know what resources were nec­es­sary for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ser­vice? Recently I attended, for the first time, a church that is part of a litur­gi­cal tra­di­tion. I was not sure what mate­ri­als I needed to pick up at the entrance. When I asked one of the ush­ers, she sim­ply looked at me, with­out respond­ing. Look­ing, as far as I could tell, dumb­founded at my igno­rance, I was left to inter­pret her silence: “What are you doing here, any­way?” “Who wants to know?” “What, really, is your prob­lem?” I asked again and still received no response. So I stood aside, watched what other con­gre­gants picked up and did likewise. 

The way wor­ship ser­vices were con­ducted often rein­forced our sta­tus as out­siders. Almost invari­ably a wel­come was extended to “our vis­i­tors,” but that greet­ing seemed uncon­vinc­ing. Announce­ments were cryp­tic, often men­tion­ing the first names of peo­ple with­out explain­ing who they were. Denom­i­na­tional agen­cies and insti­tu­tions were referred to by means of an alpha­bet soup of acronyms leav­ing new­com­ers bewil­dered and con­fused. The worst part came imme­di­ately after the ser­vice. Peo­ple greeted each other warmly while ignor­ing guests. After months of vis­it­ing churches, I can recall only two or three times when some­one approached us and ini­ti­ated a conversation. 

At one point, I decided to attend a neigh­bour­hood church to which I could walk, fully intend­ing to make it my home. After the ser­vice I wove my way through the crowded and noisy foyer. I was sur­rounded by hand­shakes, hugs, and laugh­ter. I saw peo­ple notice me out of the cor­ner of their eyes, but no one made a move towards me. At the coat rack, I slowly donned my jacket and once more ran the fel­low­ship gaunt­let. Again no con­ver­sa­tions were ini­ti­ated. “I don’t need this,” I con­cluded as I walked home. I did not intend to return. 

If any­one spoke to my wife and me at all dur­ing our vis­its, it was usu­ally the pas­tor. They are, after all, paid to notice odd­balls. But even their record was not exactly impres­sive. One par­tic­u­larly depress­ing day, I actu­ally ini­ti­ated a con­ver­sa­tion with a pas­tor. I told him that I would like to talk and gave him my busi­ness card and my phone num­ber. I never heard from him.  

If we were not com­mit­ted, highly moti­vated Chris­tians we might have given up. We know how to look for churches, what we need, what a church is sup­posed to be and what to ask for. It takes a lot of endurance to keep going back week after week to visit churches and throw one­self on the hos­pi­tal­ity of strangers only to be ignored or snubbed. It presents a for­mi­da­ble bar­rier to seek­ing com­mu­nion with our fel­low Chris­tians. I won­der how less moti­vated new­com­ers cope or respond. What do we expect will hap­pen to peo­ple whose Chris­t­ian com­mit­ment is less secure or some­one who has come to church reluc­tantly? What about a per­son who has never been part of a church before or one who wants to explore the Chris­t­ian faith? If our expe­ri­ence is the norm, I expect that many peo­ple do not feel wel­come to attend and that the lack of hos­pi­tal­ity we reg­u­larly expe­ri­enced may well deter them from trying. 

Even if a church is not con­cerned about wel­com­ing new­com­ers, surely there are other rea­sons why we should be con­cerned about for­eign­ers. It is an estab­lished fact that mov­ing is one of life’s most stress­ful tran­si­tions. A sim­ple act of Chris­t­ian com­pas­sion can help peo­ple through such a change. This is par­tic­u­larly impor­tant in a city like Toronto since, sta­tis­tics indi­cate, over half of its pop­u­la­tion were not born in Canada. Hos­pi­tal­ity is not rocket sci­ence. What does it take to greet strangers? Does it cost so much to ask how some­one is doing? Can we not give a lit­tle thought to help­ing a per­son unfa­mil­iar with our tra­di­tion join in worship? 

1 Peter 4:9 says sim­ply: “Be hos­pitable to one another … .” Hos­pi­tal­ity is a cru­cial Chris­t­ian prac­tice that reflects our response to and wel­come of God. In his teach­ing on the end time Jesus indi­cated that wel­com­ing the stranger amounted to receiv­ing him and would be part of the cri­te­ria used for deter­min­ing our eter­nal des­tiny (Matt 25:35, 38, 43, 44). The next time I hear a church com­plain about declin­ing num­bers, I’ll have to bite my tongue, or I might be tempted to say: “Serves us right.” 

Bib­li­og­ra­phy

• Arter­bury, Andrew E. “Abraham’s Hos­pi­tal­ity among Jew­ish and Early Chris­t­ian Writ­ers: A Tra­di­tion His­tory of Gen 18:1–16 and its Rel­e­vance for the Study of the New Tes­ta­ment.” Per­spec­tives in Reli­gious Stud­ies 30 (2003): 359–376.
• Kline, Leslie. “Ethics for the End Time: an Exe­ge­sis of 1 Peter 4:7–11.” Restora­tion Quar­terly 7 (1963): 113–123.
• Park, J. “Hos­pi­tal­ity as con­text for evan­ge­lism.” Mis­si­ol­ogy 30 (2002): 385–395.
• Pohl, C. “Bib­li­cal Issues in Mis­sion and Migra­tion.” Mis­si­ol­ogy 31 (2003): 3–15.
• Pohl, C. Mak­ing Room. Grand Rapids: Eerd­mans, 1999.