How Hospitality Leads To The Spread of the Gospel
One of the things I’ve learned about sharing the gospel with people since I started planting house churches is that there are significantly better ways to lead people to Jesus than inviting them to a church service. This is true regardless of whether you attend a house church or not.
In fact, one of the best ways you can be a light and present Jesus to those you know is to invite them into your home.
I know. Your home is your castle. Or your safe space. Or you just have a mess on your floor and you don’t want people over. I get it.
But inviting people into your home is the easiest way for people to see how a Christian really lives. It allows you to be vulnerable and share possibly the most precious thing you have with someone. All of this is an opportunity to talk about Jesus.
Don’t get me wrong. You’ll still have to share the gospel. You’ll still have to call people to repent and believe in Jesus. Just the mere fact of opening your door does not remove the obligation to speak the truth of the gospel. But it does open the doors of other peoples’ hearts for you to share the gospel with them.
This is why Jesus commands people to spread the gospel by staying at a house of peace (Luke 10:5-7), why the early church met from house to house (Acts 5:42), and why Paul wrote to Timothy and told him to only appoint leaders who “enjoy having guests in [their] home,” (1 Timothy 3:2). Jesus, Peter, John, and Paul all knew the value of welcoming outsiders into a home.
Let me tell you a quick story.
Fifteen months ago my dad purchased a used basketball hoop and dropped it off in my backyard without telling me. We put it up in our driveway and didn’t think much of it. This past spring, we started noticing young boys from our neighborhood showing up and playing basketball without asking us.
We had two choices. We could chase them away or we could take the time to build relationships with these kids and see where it went. And while the latter choice would be time consuming and mean our stuff would get used more roughly, we took it.
Eventually the boys started needing water. So we had cups with each kids name on it that we’d give them. Then we’d give them simple snacks. Before you knew it, sometimes 7-10 kids were eating at our dinner table, playing video games with our kids, and listening to Bible stories with us before bed. We chose to be a place where they would feel welcome and they kept showing up.
We’ve probably shared the gospel this year more with our neighborhood than in many of our previous years. And all of it started because we welcomed some kids who we could have easily turned away.
For you, it might not be a basketball hoop in your driveway. Maybe it’s your kitchen table and a cup of coffee with a neighbor who is struggling. Maybe it’s a meal with a young family around your dinner table. Maybe its the poker table in your basement that guys from your neighborhood gather around. But I guarantee you, if you look for ways to use your home for the gospel, something will turn up.
The question is, are you willing?
It’s Not Too Late
You still have time.
There are people you know all around you that are going to be by themselves on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They may not have family or they may be away from home. They may not be believers: They could be atheists, Hindus, Jews, or Muslims.
Regardless, no one likes to be alone, especially when everyone else is with family and friends celebrating. And this year, probably in a way that is different from many years in the past, it’s easy for people to feel alone in our culture even if people are all around them.
So, it’s not too late. Invite an international or a friend with no family to join you as you celebrate. It will be a great chance to love and serve someone. It will also be a great chance to talk about the greatness of Jesus and the reason you celebrate.
Christmas is in two days. But you can still impact a life. Invite someone to join you.
Photo Credit: Hourglass by Nick Olejniczak
The Cloister, The Harvest, and Where the Laborers Are (Part 3)
In the West, we have an interesting problem. The Church is cloistered. But because of that cloistering we believe no one wants to hear the Gospel. The opposite is true. The harvest is great, but the workers are few. And that sets up an interesting problem.
Jesus’ answer to a great harvest and a shortage of laborers is simple and yet very different than ours. We start Bible colleges, seminaries, training programs and apprenticeships. Jesus starts with the Father.
He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.
-Matthew 9:37-38
So Jesus’ first response is to pray. We look for strategies, but God is looking for people to pray. The raising up of laborers is a divine act that requires us to go to God in prayer. Have you been doing this? What does your prayer life look like in regards to God raising up laborers? I would suggest this is a good litmus test for how connected you are to God’s heart for the lost.
Now, a lot of people are familiar with this verse and some people actually practice it. This isn’t just Jesus’ being impractical. He expected God to answer and He did. But how?
Jesus called his twelve disciples together and gave to them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of disease and illness…Jesus sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions: “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel—God’s lost sheep. Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!
-Matthew 10:1, 5-8
Did you catch that? God answers the prayers of the disciples by raising up laborers among the very people Jesus told to pray. The people who prayed for laborers became the laborers themselves!
We can’t miss either of these two ideas. For the believer who sees a need for laborers, we need to spend time asking the Father to raise up laborers for the harvest. God is the source of true laborers for the Kingdom and if we ask Him for them in faith, He will give them. But the other idea is equally as important: If we pray for God to raise up laborers for the harvest, we shouldn’t be surprised if we ourselves are some of the very people that God raises up as a laborer.
This idea is crucial. So many people see the need for laborers, see the situation of the harvest, and may even pray. But few are willing to step out and be the very thing that they’ve been asking God for.
But we’re going to need more than just you in the harvest field, we’ll need others as well. God will raise up laborers from the church in much the same way as He did with the disciples. But one of the places we significantly underestimate finding laborers is among the lost.
Why the lost? Well, as we make disciples of lost men and women, we should be teaching them that they have a responsibility to make disciples as well. The teaching and modeling of this responsibility cannot be underestimated. New believers who are amazed about their new relationship with Jesus are often the best at convincing unbelievers that Jesus is real, and often are better at it and more motivated than long term Christians. As a ministry that I know of is fond of saying “The resources for the harvest are found in the harvest.” God has actually stored up laborers for the harvest in the harvest field. We should expect this and teach this as a normal thing, and quickly we will find the number of laborers dramatically increasing.
Friends, the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. Have you prayed to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field? Are you prepared not just to pray that prayer, but also to be an answer to that prayer?
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 