Sep 9

Sep 9 Reflection Roundup: Hospitality

Each week we gather news stories, notable pieces, and other important items for Christian leaders today. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but may not concur. Here are 10 things worth sharing this week.

—

Radical hospitality calls us to ask ourselves what amount of our own preference might we be willing to sacrifice to create space for the perceived need of another.

1. Later this month, the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry will join with the Baptist Studies Center in a webinar conversation with Jeremy K. Everett and Eugene Cho discussing a topic of concern: food insecurity. The two came alongside Bread for the World, established in 1975, and have partnered in uncovering the reasons behind international shortages (such as those experienced during the pandemic) at a policy level. In a similar vein, Jordan Teague writes “Special Drawing Rights: More resources for hunger and nutrition,” examining the inner workings of international assistance and addressing the question, “What can we do?”

2. Rob Cross, Karen Dillon, and Danna Greenberg write “The Secret to Building Resilience” for Harvard Business Review. The article was released at the first of the year, but its relevance is not a minute late, nor is the energy they have devoted to investigating the topic of resilience throughout 2021. A quote from nearby voices, “I’m tired of being resilient,” raises the meat of this piece in importance. Resilience is directly related to our relationships, specifically our relationships with different types of people representing different aspects of our lives. Diverse connections provide “dimensionality. We can actually become more resilient in the process of connecting with others in our most challenging times.”

3. Rick Atchley’s August series on “Essential Church” for The Hills Church in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area, also falls squarely into the category of “too good to miss.” Raising the questions we’ve all explored around the essential nature of our gatherings, Atchley reminds, Christ’s intended impact and identity in the world have always been represented through the gathered church. God’s Christ attended the world in flesh and blood for the stretch of his earthly ministry. This God-drawn presence to one another is the most basic element of our model for Christian community.

4. “It’s more important than ever that colleges and universities position themselves as places of welcome and belonging,” writes Sarah Matusek for the Christian Science Monitor. She’s exploring university life in “Community on campus: As college students return, a focus on well-being,” but her message translates ever-so-smoothly into congregational life. Might we take note of welcome, of hospitality, even of finding humor in the challenges? Matusek writes of cohesion where there’s been temptation toward siloed functioning in times past. There’s an increase in support responses and “generally checking in on one another” over longer stretches. Relational bonds and places of belonging within the larger body are big difference-makers on campuses, and I can’t help but think how well this translates into congregations if we allow a slight adjustment in our vision to enable us to see our present moment in this way. “We’re at a little bit of a cultural reset moment,” we could all say. It helps to hear how other organizations are handling it, and to know we’re not alone.

5. Summer in our family is a time for regathering, checking in, and stepping forward in life anew. Often this involves spiritual disciplines, whether spoken or simply enacted by folks in a season when they see one another more than in other stretches of the year. September is around the time when healthy disciplines become contested, as Kate H. Rademacher testifies in “As kids return to school, we must protect their right to rest. Sabbath practices can help” for Religion News Service. Sabbath is more gift than discipline – one that we are commanded to receive, open, and utilize rather than shelve in favor of our idols of self-sufficiency. It is that by which we receive life, returned to us by the Spirit of God, over and over in weekly rhythm.

6. Nobody has ever claimed “humility is overrated,” especially not Carey Nieuwhof in his recent piece on emotional intelligence, “5 Hacks That Can Immediately Improve Your Leadership.” Every sensitivity seems heightened these days, and it’s more crucial than ever to be aware of the impact we have on others in our presence. How is the climate affected when we join the mix? Send a text? Stand up in front of a group? We can be a lot, and it’s important to know so we can monitor ourselves and make hospitable adjustments, wholeheartedly making space for God’s work in the entire community of faith. Sometimes we want to grab all that up for ourselves.

7. Exploring the question, “Did God Give Me COVID?,” in a piece for Mosaic, Adam Daniels takes us straight out of gazing at our own navels and into 2 Sam. 24 and one of David’s finer moments (which immediately follows disobedience! And so it goes…). Prayerful and reliant, yet convicted of his own selfishness and very real fear of the virus, Daniels took notice of the spirit David portrays this time around. David prays that any peril come at the hand of God rather than the hand of men, and later that the evil visited upon the people be subsumed by him. The plague in 2 Samuel relents as a result of this self-giving petition in much the same way as the cross ended the power of sin. “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great” (2 Sam. 24:14). Daniels doesn’t write assuming he has the answers, but his piece raises some good questions about our own willingness to participate in the suffering of Christ.

8. In a cultural and political landscape divided over, well, you name it, opening arms to Afghan families arriving all over the U.S. reminds us of the welcome Christ extended to us into the kingdom of God and life eternal. Miriam Jordan and Jennifer Steinhauer write “Americans Stretch Across Political Divides to Welcome Afghan Refugees” for the New York Times. When asked how he considered the risk of unvetted immigrants, Chris St. John, a vice president at the Center for Arizona Policy, said, “I am not looking at this from a political perspective; I’m coming from a decidedly biblical perspective.”

9. The formation of communities of virtue through storytelling is one posit of the team presenting “Forming Communities of Virtue,” a recent webinar from ACU’s Baptist Studies Center and Siburt Institute for Church Ministry. Karen Swallow Prior and Richard Beck express the opportunity ecclesial life offers Christians to cross boundaries. Exploring this topic on a practical level, panelists discuss how Christ-like responses to difficult stimuli can bend toward becoming more automatic. Our practical, daily experiences, as well as those about which we read, lead us into the realization that this is territory where we join God’s work in virtuous refinement.

10. The folks at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center know full well that our human tendency is to focus on ourselves, and how unhealthy this is for us as individuals and communities. Philippians 2 challenges that there is no greater image of cruciformity than the ability to look toward the interests of others as Christ did, taking on human life. “Common Humanity Meditation,” a 10-minute exercise in mindfulness, exercises our mental and emotional muscles, those that help us lean toward others, locating similarities with those who have hurt us or who approach life very differently than we do.