Ministry of Christian Invitation

The Ministry of Christian Invitation

▪	Welcome guests who attend church on Sundays or Wednesdays. Invite one of them to share a meal with you.

▪	Learn the names of the people you come in contact with each day: the clerks at the store, bank or post office.

▪	Take time to have conversations with people in your neighborhood. Plan a cookout with them.

▪	Provide transportation for a new American family to attend church or go to the grocery store.

▪	Host a holiday meal for someone new to our church or new to our country.

▪	Assoc Pastor, Invitation— Ralph Starling

▪	Divorce Recovery— Geri & Robin Hale-Cooper

▪	Culture of Hospitality— Michael Lipford

▪	Internationals— Noni Ledford

▪	New Americans— Warren Pierce & Julie Pierce

▪	Ushers & Greeters— Wally & Fran Hudgins

▪	Pastor, Deaf & Minister, Recreation— Buddy Burgess

▪	Recreation Admin Asst— Robin Hendricks

The Ministry of Christian Invitation is the practice of hospitality. It is about the way the followers of Jesus Christ live, love and relate to the world. Marjorie Thompson said, “The remarkable explosion of Christianity in the first century was due not only to the proclamation of the gospel but to the extraordinary quality of Christian hospitality.”

Hospitality is essentially an expression of love and begins with God. Elizabeth Newman expresses the implications of Christian hospitality well, “We do not gather ourselves for worship; God invites us in. And if we worship faithfully, we will extend the hospitality that is worship through all the other days of the week to our neighbors, to strangers, and even to our enemies.”

As the Body of Christ, the church has been called to reflect the hospitality God has shown us in Jesus. As we learn to receive God’s hospitality to us, we will become more loving and hospitable, to God, to each other, and to our fellow creatures.

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you…. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in” (Matthew 25:34-35).

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