Confession:  As a “Kingdom Kid” in our fellowship of churches I grew up with DPI books and even worked at the Book and Tape Table in High School.  My favorite DPI book: The Fine Art of Hospitality.  Weird.  But I really do love hospitality.  I love to cook and serve and make people feel valued and special.  That’s what this week is all about.  All around the Lansing area people have opened their homes to let people in.  That’s what hospitality really is.  It’s not being the best cook or having the best house.  It’s being able to let people in to your life, your family.  As I look back on the chapters in the book and the activities, I think hospitality and fostering a culture of hospitality in our church may be the very most important aspect of being a hometown missionary and growing the church.  We’ll definitely be focusing on this long after this series is over!

This week at our midweek service we put our bible talks together in the most simple way.  I had everyone who wanted to lead a bible talk stand up.  And then I had everyone else go to their bible talk (by literally walking over to a bible talk leader.)  They took about 5 minutes to plan the time and place and the bible talks were set.

Week 6: The Art of Hospitality

• This is the most important week of the entire campaign – if your church can become hospitable it will grow!
• Make sure people understand the difference between hospitality and entertaining – hospitality is simply letting people in and has little to do with a gourmet spread or a clean house
• Even as we execute our hospitality nights this week we need to be planning our bibletalks that will happen in just two weeks
  • We did not have bible talks set up so we did it in the easiest way possible.  At a service I said, “Who wants to host a bible talk, stand up?” (After explaining what they are).
  • Then I had everyone else go to their bibletalk – go find someone standing up – in 5 minutes they all had times and locations nailed down – boom!
  • Here’s a planning sheet you can use
  • There are bible talk starters from the parables in the appendix section
• People can share their hospitality experiences with the hashtags in the book and at your service – this is a very positive activity
• Have people put this on the Mission Map