Hospitality is something every Christian should be doing, but what exactly is hospitality? Hospitality can mean different things based on your culture, and upbringing. For some hospitality is what you receive when you stay in a hotel. A clean bed, space to be alone, a lavish breakfast and the ability to have your needs meet 24 hours day, that may be the definition of hospitality. For others, hospitality is someone opening their home for you to stay. Instead of a lavish breakfast, room to yourself, and your needs met 24 hours, you are invited into a home to help prepare the meals and to share rooms with others.
When thinking of hospitality we may think of family and friends gathering together. Hospitality can also mean a time when strangers are gathered together. Depending on your culture, it might be normal or weird to have strangers in your home. When we were a young family in seminary with only 1 child, we invited some other students over to our small apartment to join in Thanksgiving together. We were from different states, nations, and cultures and although we knew each other by name, we were not yet good friends. Despite our differences, because of our connection with Christ, we were able to show hospitality to each other and have a wonderful meal together.
Beyond our cultural perceptions of hospitality, lets see what God has to say about hospitality in His inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word.
First we look at Acts 28:7. Here we are in the middle of a story about Paul and his missionary travels. As he is traveling through a city, he is in need of some where to stay. A Roman official offers him a place to stay for the 3 days that he is in town.

There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and showed us generous hospitality for three days. (Acts 28:7)

When we let God be God, our life is better. It’s when we forget his omnipresence—and his other attributes—that we start attempting to control our own lives, and then everything goes to shambles. But here’s the remarkable thing. With Jesus being omnipresent that doesn’t mean he’s only watching you from a distance or just “keeping an eye on you.” No. He is both transcendent and personal to us. He is imminent. He is near.

“Jesus keeps me safe,” Jovi, my oldest daughter, quietly said as I tucked her in the other night.
“Yes, he will always keep you safe,” I said, while hugging her.
“He is not here,” Jovi responded.
It was in that moment I knew I could send a sense of reassurance into Jovi’s toddler-sized heart. She is only 2.5 years old, so I understand she can only process so much. But I knew she remembers things well.
“Oh, sweetie,” I said, “Jesus is here. He is with you, with me. He is everywhere.”
She replied, “Jesus is here.”
To ensure she knew my point even more, I replied, “I know you can’t see Jesus, but I promise He is here. He is always with you.”
The next day my wife told me as she was putting her down for a nap, Jovi randomly said, “Jesus is here.”
Let the heart melting begin.
I knew I didn’t need to explain the mysterious intricacies of the omnipresence of Jesus—how can he be everywhere at once? But I knew the fact that he is with her would calm her for the night and, better yet, she’d remember it. And she did.
Christian, I tell this story to give you—to give me, to give all of us—a reminder. Jesus is here with us. He is not distant, far off, or lost. He is here and cares for us.
Jesus, as the second Person of the Trinity, is not confined to time and space. He is transcendent. He is truly everywhere at once. He is just as much in the future as he is in the present.
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I’ve found that a very slight uptick in definition, common ground, and goals for ministry networking can lead to making the best use of the time when meeting with other Evangelicals. What exactly is this meeting and why am I going to it? Why are they wanting to meet with me? What piece of wisdom or experience or help can be gleaned from this time? And what can I give to serve them? 

When I was a brand new missions pastor, I was given a great piece of advice from the lead pastors that I reported to.
“Beware Evangelical talk,” they said.
“Given your position,” they continued, “you will have countless opportunities to meet and network with other pastors and people in ministry. Many of them will want to spend precious time talking about what they are about to do, or what they would like to see happen in the future (you will too). Watch out for this, and spend your time first actually getting things done, and then you will have something to talk about.”
I nodded and tucked this piece of advice away. Before long I found out just how necessary the warning was. I was inundated with invitations to meet with other ministry professionals to “connect,” “network,” and get to know one another. Some good came out of these meetings, and some important relationships were formed. But there were also many meetings where it wasn’t quite clear in the end why the meeting had taken place at all, beyond us feeling good about having spent some social time with a new person in a somewhat-related role. Plus, we were in Louisville, so the coffee was often quite good (Sunergos, Quills, Vint, etc.).
Group gatherings of ministry professionals could be the worst in this regard, and not only in ministry contexts in the West. This is a dynamic that also continues on the mission field when groups of workers from different organizations meet together. It usually goes like this. A bunch of evangelical ministry types feel the urge to meet together regularly because “unity” and “the kingdom is bigger than your church” and “don’t be tribal because that’s bad.” But these vague notions don’t often get any more defined than that. So the group meets, and when it’s time to share the bulk of the time is spent by those talking about exciting things that seem right about to get started – or it’s monopolized by someone who has had some measure of success and now believes that what they did is the silver bullet for everyone else’s context.
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