Comment
Dorothy and David McMillan

From the Director
David Porter

Good Living in Bad Circumstances
Glenn Jordan

Readers Survey Report
Ruth Hutchinson

The Local Church and The Local Community
Norman Hamilton

Hospitality for Ministers
Graham Cheesman

Too Many Partnerships...not enough partners?
Maurice Kinkead

Community and Conflict...a Restorative Approach
Debbie Watters

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HOSPITALITY FOR MINISTERS

Models are dangerous. Teenage girls damage themselves when they measure their figures against Kate Moss. Our models of ministry damage us in the thin-ness of their bias and inadequacies. The minister as manager - getting a job done through people. The minister as father figure - caring and keeping discipline in the church. The minister as teacher - telling his people what to believe and do from the Word of God. These are all part of the picture but they leave large areas of the canvas without illumination.

Ministry as hospitality is no more comprehensive than any of these, but it shines a light on the softer, gentler, humbler area of ministry. For that very reason it is useful in Northern Irish Christianity.

Hospitality Explained

So what is this grace of hospitality so often commended to in the Scriptures? It is infinitely more than opening our homes, a cup of tea and 'wee buns'. We create hospitality by offering acceptance and safety. The other person comes into our world on his terms more than ours. Generous hospitality is not to offer love so long as the other person pays the price of believing all I believe, doing things the way I do them and feeling as I feel. It is the construction of a sense of welcome and safety so they can be different without the fear of rejection.

In hospitality we see ourselves, the host, as less important than the guest and we serve. We create the loving space for the other person by drawing back ourselves. There is a Jewish tradition that God created the world by self-withdrawal. In the beginning he filled all space completely and there was no room for the created world. So, he withdrew himself to create space for the other. Time in Africa has taught me that the guest sets the agenda. We are there for our guest.

Hospitality implies encounter. When someone is invited into your private space, they encounter you, hopefully in as much reality as you can manage. Creating a free and safe space allows the host also to be transparent and straightforward. An atmosphere of acceptance is the best place for both to open the cupboards, the ideal place to confront.

Hospitality Applied

The hospitality model of ministry is a little like those tinted glasses some line judges wear in tennis to see the yellow ball against the green background. Put on the glasses of the hospitality model and suddenly some things jump out and we see them clearly against the background of our ministry. What things?

Ministry is all about individual people, not the congregation en masse. You can 'put up' a hundred people if your house is big enough but hospitality is individual. It has been said of lecturing that it is like trying to fill 100 bottles by lining them up in rows and throwing a bucket of water over them. Preaching is a little like that, even allowing for the Holy Spirit to direct the water. Taking the bottles to the tap one by one in your own hands, that's ministry as hospitality.

Listening becomes a large part of the job. It is easy to give simple public answers to complicated private questions. But ministry is not re-formatting material from the commentaries or re-gurgitating our lecture notes. It is building a bridge between the Word of God and the people where they are today. For that, we have to really listen. We can't say, "Jesus is the answer," until we have understood the depth, the intensity, the sheer jumbled complication of the questions.

Ministers must try to create churches that are places of acceptance and safety not fear and exclusion. Many Christians in many churches are afraid to admit to doubts, don't say what they really feel, fear to mess up. They keep quiet about the way they are different in thought, action and feelings. That is not church as it should be. Such conformity beyond Gospel issues is often policed by the minister, making shipwreck of his Christian hospitality and that of his church.

Modesty as to what we can do as ministers becomes appropriate within the hospitality model. A gardener does not give life or growth to a tender plant. The most he can do is keep the protective greenhouse in good repair and provide the water and nutrients. Ministers do not transform people's lives. They do not bring the Word of God home to the heart. They do not cause Christians to grow or the unconverted to be saved. All that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Fellow minister, by all means lead the charge, lay down the rules, make the judgments, tell the truth. Please also give your hearts to us, quietly build the greenhouse, create some safe, open, peaceable space, listen to us, wait at our table. Then send us on our way in peace with some provisions for the journey, a decent road map and gratitude for the hospitality.

Graham Cheesman - Principal of the Belfast Bible College.