Hospitality is an honored Southern grace, but it is also an important biblical virtue. It is a very practical way that we can love and serve Christ.
Abraham greeted the Lord in the form of the holy strangers at the Oaks of Mamre with a feast.
The sinful woman showed Jesus extravagant hospitality in the Pharisee’s house by washing his feet with tears and drying them with her long hair, even when the host himself had failed to show even the most basic forms of hospitality.
Jesus washed his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper.
We approach the Altar Rail during the Holy Eucharist because our host Jesus has made us welcome there through his death and resurrection. He is the host and he is the feast. We are his beloved guests.
As a relative newcomer to St. Mark’s, I am in a particularly good position to say a word about the hospitality of our faith community. We are warm and welcoming in many informal ways. Visitors find smiling faces in the pews and willing souls to help direct them to the nursery or the Ministry Center. Our hearts are in the right place!
Informal forms of hospitality are very important, but we can enhance the sense of welcome felt by visitors with a few formal measures designed to make newcomers feel right at home. One of those measures is the Greeter ministry. Under the capable leadership of Leslie Caraway, a Greeter’s ministry will begin in June.
Greeters will welcome everyone as they enter from the North and the South. While they will help orient newcomers and ask them to provide some information about themselves, Greeters will also say good morning to everyone before the service. Newcomers will receive a follow-up thank you call from the Greeters at the beginning of the week (in addition to the note they already receive from me).
Being Church is about relationship: relationship to our Lord and relationship to each other in His name. The Greeters will underscore this for us each week.
The Greeter ministry is one element of the larger Evangelism ministry. In the coming months we will put into place clear pathways for connecting new people to the life of the church through ministries and small groups. We will also put into place a system for tracking our visitors and newcomers to continue to help them to feel at home.
We are here to love and serve Christ. Through the Evangelism ministry we are welcoming the children of God as our brothers and sisters in Christ. Support your Greeters when you see them on Sunday morning. They may ask you to take a new family to the nursery or to sit with them for the first service. Above all, continue to be the warm, welcoming people you are. The Greeters are really just a sign for newcomers of the genuine hospitality they will find inside the church.
