This morning’s sermon was about hospitality. Hospitality in the biblical sense where we look at satisfying the needs of someone without it necessarily satisfying any need of your own – becoming a friend to strangers and living and bringing Christ to them. The reading was from Ef.2:11-22 which illustrates how God through Jesus Christ is the ultimate host. It explains how we were strangers (v11-12) who in Jesus Christ (v. 13-18) are welcomed home in God’s kingdom. The sermon is available (in Afrikaans) on www.ligpunt.com for those who want to get the whole background.
My thoughts turned to what hospitality would look like at work in the South African context – whether it is in an office, or school, or a warehouse, or a household –whatever it is that you occupy yourself with during working hours; including those places and people that need Christ but do not necessarily acknowledge Him. How would the four types of hospitality mentioned (to those that are poor, alone, dependent and/or removed from God) play out in a work situation? And how can we practically show hospitality in a corporate or professional environment?
I believe being hospitable at work is not that different from opening your home to others – it is about opening your being beyond the requirements of work and being a welcoming person to others. In this way we live Christ to them. In the beginning it can be without saying a word; as relationships deepen we can then start to prayerfully consider having conversations.
Hospitality actually starts in your own heart. Opening your being to people at work (or any other environment that may be hostile or driven or focused primarily on values that are secondary to Christians) may not be a ‘natural’ process. Led by the Spirit it takes us to grow into it and risk – being in constant prayer and awareness that God is at work and that we are merely instruments in His hands.
So here are a few ideas:
- When you go to your local for your coffee, make/buy two cups and have a coffee break with someone you don’t know so well.
- Instead of having your lunch at your desk, find a place to sit where others can join you. Take an extra sandwich every now and again and give it to someone who didn’t bring lunch. I know of a smaller organization where the people eat together every Friday, with the Exec team providing the food.
- Drive with a colleague to a meeting instead of taking your own car. Or get them to drive with you. Or take a taxi/bus with someone who does it regularly – it gives you insight into their lives and creates common ground.
- Make time (a few minutes each day) to find out what is happening in people’s lives outside of work. Taking an interest beyond that which is productive is short-term time costly but rewarding if you take an eternal perspective.
- If you are in a management position, take some time out to engage with the back office and support services to find out what would make their lives better at work, and take the initiative to get these things in place.
- If your budget allows it, create an opportunity for someone who cannot afford it to go on a course, develop in a direction that would improve their life, or even just join the gym – whatever is suitable. Use it as an opportunity to get to know that person better.
- Run an errand for someone in your department – especially in times when everyone is snowed under and working under pressure.
- Create an atmosphere in your department that values people, e.g. where people greet each other each morning, where meetings are started by spending the first 5 minutes checking in with the people around the table about their well-being and setting the bigger picture scene and purpose of why each of the people are around the table – welcoming them and the contribution they can make at the meeting. We believe that Christ is in everything – and He is also the one who brought each of those people to be at that meeting at that time.
- If you are a shop floor employee, share something of yourself with someone above your level of work –a homemade rusk/cookie; a word of encouragement and/or thanks, a joke.
- Make time at work to pray for your organization, colleagues and industry. This might mean coming in 5 minutes earlier or staying later. Prayer is powerful to reach people who are going through a difficult time.
- Think about the industry you work in – is there a way that one can start taking small steps to bring godly love and caring back into that industry?
There are deeper aspects where we need to engage in terms of hospitality at work, which take more pages, but these are a start. The bottom line is that we need to love strangers just like Jesus did. Christ went beyond himself so that we could be welcomed back home – let us be the same for others.
Other quick reads: https://thegospelcoalition.org/article/hospitality-is-not-just-for-home/
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Hi yes – asking after peoples welfare in the workplace helps them relax and be more productive