How Open Is YOUR Door?

On Mother's Day, it is appropriate to remember that one of the ways the Bible teaches us to open our doors is in our own homes.


LUKE 13:35-36 (nlt). Be dressed for service, and well prepared, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks.

LUKE 14:12-13 (nlt). When you put on a luncheon or a banquet, don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

HEBREWS 13:1-2 (nlt). Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

1 PETER 4:9 (nrsv). Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

ACTS 2:46-47 (cev). Day after day they met together in the temple. They broke bread together in different homes and shared their food happily and freely, while praising God.


We can see that home-based hospitality goes hand in hand with a Sunday morning emphasis on hospitality at church. In a society of gated communities and private back porches, this may be needed more than ever.


Randy Frazee writes about how churches today sometimes miss the joys of simple home-based hospitality:

In the early church, people didn’t get on their camels to go to Bethany to worship. We have adults who seem to have suffered a spiritual stroke. They go to church, but they have forgotten that wonderful sense of hanging out, that basic expression of fellowship in their neighborhoods.

Read here this article about how Frazee is helping the huge megachurch Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago area is using simple meal gatherings in homes as a way to fulfill the call to make disciples of Jesus Christ!


Sunday School expert Josh Hunt writes about the power of "giving your Friday nights to Jesus":

Fasten your seat belt, friend, because this is the most high powered approach we have. I do not know anything that works better than giving Friday nights to Jesus. Giving Friday nights to Jesus will reach more people in less time than any method I know. In fact, if you give Friday nights to Jesus and your class does not double in two years or less, it probably can't be done. The really unbelievable thing is that giving Friday nights to Jesus is more fun than Six Flags.

Read the rest of the article here on giving your Friday nights to Jesus!


"A Christian home is a miracle to be shared!" This statement comes from Karen Mains, who wrote the book Open Heart, Open Home. Karen believes that a hospitable family can change its neighborhood and a hospitable church can change its community. Just inviting folk to dinner can become an evangelistic act. Mains insists that the acts of warm invitation and true welcome are God-like and can reap surprising spiritual fruit.

Read more about what Karen Mains has to say at this link.


TRY THIS: Do a Google search for the phrase "radical hospitality" - you will find a lot of interesting, thought-provoking stuff!