{"id":3465,"date":"2010-10-02T23:02:25","date_gmt":"2010-10-03T03:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeasprayer.wordpress.com\/?p=3465"},"modified":"2010-10-02T23:02:25","modified_gmt":"2010-10-03T03:02:25","slug":"friendly-vs-hospitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/friendly-vs-hospitable\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendly vs. Hospitable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
80s hospitality<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A lot of people claim to have friendly churches. But we have to ask, “Friendly…compared to what?”<\/p>\n

Most would avoid saying, “our church is unfriendly.”<\/p>\n

Yet, friendliness is distinctly different from hospitality.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A friendly church might\u2013by policy or administration\u2013greet newcomers<\/p>\n

\u2022 A friendly church may staff a church information center<\/p>\n

\u2022 A friendly church might include a greeting time within the order of the worship.<\/p>\n

But, this is surface-level hospitality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friendliness involves a, “Hello, how are you?” But, hospitality waits for the real answer, and offers an invitation to break bread together… Really, to do life together.<\/p>\n

\u2022 After church, are folks staying afterwards to visit, or do they rush off to their kids’ soccer matches, NFL games, or other obligations?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Are spiritual siblings, sort of, shooed out so the Sexton can lock up the building?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Can congregants make and share a meal at church, a snack, or put on a pot of coffee, without the deacons getting nervous about clean up and carpet stains?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Does the building, and the programs and schedules therein eclipse the human beings for whom the church exists?<\/p>\n

Shouldn’t church feel (be<\/em>) comfortable\u2013like an inviting hearth and home? Should it not have the kitchen and the living room vibe<\/em>, where people feel a bit saddened to leave, at the end, because they have enjoyed a time with people who love them. A place where people don’t look at their watch, but instead comment on the pity it is that time went so quickly. A. hospitable. place.<\/p>\n

What is the culture of your church?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you could change something, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does hospitality <\/span><\/strong>look and<\/span> behave<\/span><\/strong><\/em> like, [to you]?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks for your ideas.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you friendly, hospitable, or neither? What about your church?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5626],"tags":[13,709,713,769,1160,1371,1450,1576,1695,2625,2626,3664],"class_list":["post-3465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spark-my-muse","tag-christianity","tag-church-christians","tag-church-greeters","tag-community-meals","tag-evangelicalism","tag-friendly-church","tag-gift-of-hospitality","tag-hang-time","tag-hospitality","tag-potluck-dinners","tag-potlucks","tag-welcome-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}