The Key Piece of the Puzzle

Posted August 25th, 2010 by Shawn Barden

 Hospitality may be the most important and most underutilized gift in the Church today. 

All the new faces and families that have been coming and checking out Mountainside this summer excitedly overwhelms me, for this reason: 

People come to churches for a wide variety of reasons:  the want their kids to learn values, they enjoy the music, they like the preacher, they are looking to proceed on their spiritual journey, they heard it’s a friendly place.   

There are all kinds of reasons why people come to a church for the first time, but there is one reason why they stay- They stay because they have made friends there. 

People stay and get connected into a church because they have  got connect with some people  from that church.  People are not looking for a friendly church as much as they are looking for friends at a church. 

So that means you can have the most jaw dropping music, you can have a preacher who is funny-relevant-biblical-poignant-and persuasive all at once, you can have a children’s program that puts Chucky-Cheese to shame, and people will not stay.

People are not looking so much for the best “show” in town, as much as they are looking to find the best “friends” in town.

It is all about relationships. 

So that means taking the 10 minutes you take to connect with a new family, and inviting them out to a backyard BBQ, is one of the most God-honoring things you can do.  That means that taking time to create some highly valued “relational space” for a new person is both smile-inducing to Jesus, a mission accomplishing to Mountainside.   

If we are going to truly be a place that “advances the Kingdom of God by vitally connecting people to Jesus,” we need to do that one dinner at a time, one invitation to meet at the Timber Chair at a time, one get-to-know-you tea at the Tea House at a time.

That is Kingdom work. That is loving as Jesus loved.

So are you making new friends at Mountainside, or are you just being friendly?  Those are two very different things, and will mold us into two very different churches.  One of them has the potential to change this city.   

Please, please, please, choose well.  

May we strive to be as hospitable as the God who befriended us.

Smelling the BBQ’s 

Pastor Shawn