Just do it!

Hospitality, welcoming ministry, or more technically—reception process—are in vogue as the church continues to test its aptitude for evangelization. We plan for it and program it, and unleash ad campaigns (Hungry Hearts,We're Here for You, We Live in Very Complicated Times, and most recently, Put Your Faith to Work); and grand ventures (Decade of Evangelism, 20/20). And having lived through all of these, I think we would be better off with Nike’s approach: Just do it.


On a flight into Portland, Oregon this past Thursday night, my wife and I found a church just doing it (maybe that’s the thing in Nike’s corporate home). We stayed at the Quality Inn near the airport for a little rest before driving on to Walla Walla, Washington the next day. The staff were responsive and friendly, the rooms well-tended and clean, and free breakfast offered at the inn’s café. Not that unusual for a well-managed inn, particularly one with a high aspiration name, but this particular lodging is owned by the Eastside Four Square Gospel Church.
The connection was clear but not over the top: just a sign below the marquee and a plaque in the inn lobby. And in the lobby a patient and friendly clerk, and beside the counter an easel with poster inviting guests to add a donation to their bill to support a transitional housing ministry in Portland, My Father’s House. Which we did (point of sale does work in the right setting). No testimonial flyers with your room key card, no bibles on the pillows, and no invitations to attend Bible study or prayer services. Rather low key for an evangelical church.


Across the driveway is the Eastside Four Square Gospel café offering free breakfast (waffles, biscuits, muffins, cereal, hard boiled eggs, coffee and juice) to inn guests, and again friendly, even eager, service. The only church goods present there are the literature in a tract rack. It’s all about hospitality and comfort, just as the names of most chain inns connote. Walking out the door, you leave with two impressions: welcomed and well-fed; and your measure of the people at Four Square is much more positive than if you had been blanketed with doctrine and devotional pitches. No one invited us to attend a service or a meeting, nor did anyone hand out literature or point out the tract rack. The whole focus was on service and welcoming. This may reflect the religion averse nature of the Northwest, but I suspect the approach would be on target in Bucktown, Bolingbrook or Buffalo Grove. It’s what is known in emergent church as contextual faith: orienting the church to the community it serves. We are doing this to some degree in the Diocese of Chicago—All Saints in Ravenswood, St. Gregory’s in Deerfield, Epiphany on the Near West Side, and Trinity, Aurora come to mind—but we could do more, much more.


So your reading assignment: Radical Hospitality, and Take This Bread.