Classical Worship for Today: Hospitality Means Making Room -- By: Wilbur Ellsworth

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:2 (Spring 2004)
Article: Classical Worship for Today: Hospitality Means Making Room
Author: Wilbur Ellsworth


Classical Worship for Today:
Hospitality Means Making Room

Wilbur Ellsworth

There is a basic reason why hospitality needs to be joined to worship: our increasingly secular and non-churched culture gives people almost no possible way to enter into classical Christian worship as they are. Invite someone to a church today where worship has not been carefully arranged to reflect contemporary culture and it is likely that the result will be a one-time visit. The great tradition of the Church has become increasingly distant to our neighbors today. Evangelism is more than getting people to decide for Christ; it is winning people to become disciples and that means introducing them to the Church’s family heritage of worship. Worship is the context in which the larger vision of a God-centered life view becomes a reality. Today, introducing people to Christ means we must also introduce them to the life of faith and the Church. The task is greater than ever and it is the Christian community that needs to make the first move.

All this is to say that we need to understand what is involved in bringing those who are not the people to God to be people of God in the Church today. The question we need to face is simple, but hard: Do we have room in our lives for such people? One of the most heart-rending phrases in the entire Bible is the story of the Bethlehem innkeeper’s response to Joseph’s request: “No room.” These two words sum up the

story of humanity’s response to God’s incarnating love. The innkeeper isn’t seen as hostile, unkind, or even indifferent—just filled to capacity. His resources were exhausted; every room had an occupant. As sorry as he might be, Mary and Joseph wouldn’t find his establishment a place where they would be taken in. We have made that problem the sign of our times. We simply have no room. Our houses are bigger than ever. Our vehicles have capacities unimagined by our parents. Often our church facilities have provisions that an earlier and simpler age would have thought inconceivable. But we don’t have room in our lives for the people who are outside the household of faith. As I walked by a conversation at a health club last week I heard a pleasant young couple explaining to a physical trainer that they had “very busy life styles.” The tone of the conversation seemed to be heading toward explaining that while they wanted to be healthy and fit, they really didn’t have much time or energy in their lives to devote to such a goal. “No room.”

Simply stated, God expects us to love people we may not even know. Loving people we don’t know is the definition of hospitality, “the love of the stranger.” Most of us confess we often fail to love...

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