Maybe it was the welcoming front porch under the cool shade of the huge maple tree. Or maybe it was that very few others in our Christian community stepped up as hosts and that my parents were simply following a biblical mandate—and, in the process, modeling for me the discipline of hospitality. 

Looking back on the example my parents set, I can see an important pattern that forms the point of this article, a pattern that moves through four spheres of a Christian’s journey toward true life, the life that Jesus lived. We lose the full power of Christ’s life in us when practicing the spiritual discipline of hospitality if we reach out to others energized merely by our desire to “do the mission” of hospitality. A foundation of being needs to be in place before we get on with the mission of doing. 

The four-part pattern I observed in my parents and long to live myself begins with knowing God through regular immersion in his word. Call that developing a spiritual theology, an understanding of truth that is so alive in our hearts that we desire to live that truth. The effect of spiritual theology is to release a desire for spiritual formation, getting the truth in us so deeply that it shapes our goals and releases divine life from our hearts into the way we relate. The desire to be spiritually formed, to relate like Jesus, leads us into spiritual community, joining with other hungry-for-holiness pilgrims on the narrow road to real life. People who search for God in his word, who desire to be formed like Jesus, and who walk with others who share similar passions will discover within themselves a momentum toward spiritual mission, and will desire to reach out to help others through the privileged mission of hospitality. 

That’s the pattern: spiritual theology arousing a longing for spiritual formation that leads us into spiritual community which then releases us into spiritual mission.  

Perhaps you share my problem. I am a doer. Taking the time necessary to know God through his word and to wrestle through the discipline of my own transformation and to get involved in the messiness of authentic community can often seem like a poor use of time. I could be out in the community, on a mission for Jesus, organizing food drives, burning myself out into a noble weariness that keeps me from reflecting on the foundation and framework for what I’m doing. 

My husband of forty-five years, Larry, has helped me recognize the need to move through the disciplines of spiritual theology and spiritual formation and spiritual community so that doing the discipline of missional hospitality emerges from my being, from a heart deeply connected to the one who sent me on his mission. 

Let me offer simple understandings of each of these core terms. 

Spiritual Theology. All kingdom activity must be grounded in kingdom truth. And all kingdom truth must connect to the king of the kingdom. Missional Christians need to be absorbing God’s word, privately and in community. We need to be quietly reflecting on what we learn, letting truth reach deeply into our hearts, getting to know God through his word. A missional church that borders on biblical illiteracy will lose power. 

 Spiritual Formation. How we relate as missional Christians must be energized by the life of Christ within us. I’m a bit reluctant to hazard a definition of spiritual formation in this prestigious journal devoted to thinking through all that it means to be spiritually formed. So let me simply refer you to the idea expressed in one of my husband’s books: “Real change is possible if we start from the INSIDE OUT.”Larry Crabb, Real Change is Possible if you start from the INSIDE OUT (Colorado Springs, NavPress, 1988). When God’s word gets in us, it releases God’s power to change us. We slowly learn to relate in a way that reveals God’s character to others and releases Christ’s life into others. 

Spiritual Community. Intentionality is required if we’re to build relationships with like-minded Christians who share a commitment to find the narrow road to real change, to walk together, and to stay on it when the road becomes uncomfortably narrow. For seven years now, Larry and I have been part of what we call an Intentional Spiritual Formation Group. For twenty years, I’ve been with seven women in a covenant group that has led me into a deeper spiritual reality as we’ve journeyed together. Both groups are messy but good. 

Spiritual Mission. Francis Chan insists that true faith manifests itself through our actions.www.cloverquotes.com James says the same thing: “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26b, NKJVScripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.). But it doesn’t require a Christian to give to the needy and provide for the less fortunate. When Christians live missionally, their activity must be an overflow of divine love that finds legs as we rest in Jesus. Doing for others without being in Jesus lacks gospel power. But being in Jesus without doing for others raises the question, what business do we have calling ourselves Christians if we’re not revealing Christ to others by our works? 

I seek to live out my spiritual mission of hospitality in both my community of kindred spirits and my contact with those not yet in the circle of faith. I believe my mission matters. In New Testament times hospitality was a distinctive mark of individual Christians and Christian communities.Mortimer Arias, “Centripetal Mission of Evangelization by Hospitality,” Missiology: An International Review 10 (1982): 69, 70. Biblical exhortations to practice hospitality make it clear that hospitality is an expression of brotherly (and sisterly) love. Hebrews 13:1–2 (NASBScripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.lockman.org)) says, “Let love of the brothers and sisters continue. Do not neglect show hospitality to strangers.” And 1 Peter 4:8–9  (NASB): “Keep fervent in your love for one another. . . . Be hospitable to one another without complaint.” 

We simply cannot know each other or develop close community by meeting for an hour or so once a week in a large group in a large room. Dr. Francis Shaeffer, in his book The Mark of a Christian, argues forcefully that visible love must mark Christians.Francis Shaeffer, The Mark of a Christian (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1970). According to him, visible love is a kind of love that requires more, far more, than the surface congeniality of ten-second introductions during a church service, where strangers shake hands, exchange names and greetings, and remain strangers. 

One of the first books that stirred me to realize and release the power of hospitality within the community of believers was written by Marion Leach Jacobsen. Her title says it all: Crowded Pews and Lonely People.Marion Leach Jacobsen, Crowded Pews and Lonely People. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1972). With her encouragement, I realized I had seen hospitality at work in my birth home. I have delighted in the testimonies of folks who have tasted the love of hospitality from Christian neighbors. I have known the joy of offering hospitality to soul-weary friends. Thus, I write this article with tested conviction. I have seen the power of the spiritual mission of hospitality offered in Jesus’s name as an outgrowth of grounding in spiritual theology, hungering for spiritual formation, and risking the messiness of spiritual community. I can testify to the power of the spiritual mission of love offered in Jesus’s name if that mission is grounded in theology, formation and community. 

Larry and I began our married life with a conscious commitment to an open door policy. While he was in graduate school and I was teaching fourth grade at a local public school to help pay the bills, we offered to help out with the church’s high school and college groups. Our learning curve in the art of hospitality was bumpy, steep—and quick. We kept a variety of supplies on hand to meet unexpected needs and welcomed college students who just needed some “home time” away from dorm life. 

I often spotted Betty getting off the local bus at the corner stop by our apartment building. Another of our regular guests, she headed straight for our small apartment precisely in time for dinner. It was during those early years of open door hospitality that our two sons were born. I knew some heart-stopping moments when I eagerly returned to our church nursery to find one of our boys missing. It took a few terrifying seconds to realize that one of our youth group students had checked him out and he was now safely riding on that student’s hip. Instead of lingering in fear and mistrust, we eventually received the wonderful gift that community and hospitality had opened to us. What a simple joy to know our little kids, living so far away from extended family, had a wonderful collection of “aunts” and “uncles.” 

Another plus of opening ourselves to others: older church folks invited us into their homes for family times and holiday meals. At that time we were learning the fine art of hospitality from folks with whom, some forty years later, we still have a bond. And bonds sometimes produce unexpected blessings. The daughter of one special family, then a teenage girl who frequently was our children’s babysitter, moved to Colorado where we now live. Our friendship resumed and recently I introduced her, a never-married woman in her fifties, to a never-married man in his fifties. As I write these words, Larry and I are looking forward to praying over them in a few weeks as they become husband and wife. Friends from four decades ago will gather with us at the wedding. 

I tell that story to make a point: Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit opens up opportunities for life-changing hospitality. Our practice for years has been to spend several minutes receiving someone who makes known a personal need by visualizing them in the presence of the Trinity, and by listening for whatever we can hear that lets us know what their real need is and how we might be used to meet that need. 

Hospitality is nothing less than giving something that’s alive in you for the well-being of another. In a book I wrote in 1990 called The Personal Touch, these words appear on the back cover, written by the editor: 

You don’t need a flair for entertaining. And you don’t need a large home, gourmet cooking skills, or lots of leisure time. According to Rachael Crabb, true biblical hospitality is shown when you encourage another person whether it’s a cup of coffee with a co-worker, an elegant dinner for friends, a phone call, a note, or just taking time to listen.Rachael Crabb, The Personal Touch, Encouraging Others Through Hospitality (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1990-2005).

My encouragement to you is this: Don’t make it complicated. Hospitality consists essentially of a relationship, where one person gives to another that which is alive in his or her heart because of Christ. 

For whatever reason, I’m a spontaneous person. It’s my joy to startle and delight others with the love of God poured out through whatever the Spirit puts on my heart or in my hands. When I throw a bunch of candy hearts across a dinner table with ten friends gathered around (surprising several of them into exclamations of enchantment at receiving a hot cinnamon “I luv u” or “U R cute”) someone will inevitably observe, “That’s just like Rachael.” How each of us expresses hospitality depends on how we are wired by God. 

Recently, Larry and I wrote our joint mission statement that we want to define the rest of our lives. We then decided to put our personal mission into words. After hearing so many times “That’s just like Rachael,” I found the courage to write words that fit my soul. My mission: (1) pour myself into my family; (2) encourage my friends by giving myself to them; (3) reveal Christ’s love to all around me—waitresses, dentists, plumbers, whoever.

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01.  Giving in Grief

The opportunity recently arose to walk with a close friend after the sudden death of her thirty-seven-year-old son. She was unnerved, unable to focus. I guided her through closing out bank accounts, breaking an apartment lease, handling car payments and making insurance claims. Reading one of the thirty-one chapters in Proverbs on the corresponding day of the month provided her with the needed strength to take the next step on her difficult journey. 

In the process of walking with her, I witnessed what it looks like when people alive with spiritual theology, hungry for spiritual formation, and committed to spiritual community practice spiritual mission. First Presbyterian Church of Golden, Colorado hosted the memorial service for my friend’s son. A previously arranged event was re-scheduled, appropriate decorations were put in place, and a lovely reception was prepared. In the midst of one of the most difficult experiences of her life, my grieving friend was welcomed by a church community who knew what it is to love in practical, tangible ways. 

During that time I celebrated Matthew 25:35 (NASB): “I was a stranger and you invited me in.” That’s hospitality! And it matters. My friend grieved deeply as her faith grew deeper, in the presence of this kind of hospitality. 

Hospitality comes in as many forms as our Spirit-led imagination conceives. When Larry needed to spend three days in nuclear imaging at a downtown hospital in preparation for cancer surgery, our neighbor Patty provided points for us to stay in a nearby hotel. That’s hospitality! Neighbor Helen, former cooking editor for a major magazine, gifted us with her signature recipe for homemade pound cake. That’s hospitality! 

During my husband’s six and a half hour surgery (successful, I might add), twenty friends surrounded me in the waiting area, taking pictures of people praying and sharing, and gifting me with those inspiring and life-giving images later on. That’s hospitality! After surgery, cinnamon rolls that won the Pillsbury Bake-Off award were included in a cooler filled with meals arranged for by my birthday-club friend Karen. That’s hospitality! 

And realize this: Hospitality received becomes hospitality released. A friend in the middle of difficult times has been our houseguest for several weeks. I have walked with him to help set up a new home, learn how to shop for groceries, and prepare for his unwelcome “new normal”—living alone. 

In my journey of receiving and releasing hospitality one lesson stands out. Ruthie observed my lifestyle and gave me a wall-hanging that reads: “Please don’t mistake endurance for hospitality.” Hospitality, I’ve learned, becomes endurance when I step off the foundation of spiritual theology and fail to ask what is alive in me because of God’s truth, when I define spiritual formation as doing for others without being with God, and when I lose contact with a spiritual community that nourishes my soul with the guilt-free opportunity to rest. 

Noted theologian Carl F.H. Henry once wrote: “Christian hospitality is not a matter of choice; it is not a matter of money; it is not a matter of age, social standing, sex or personality. Christian hospitality is a matter of obedience to God.”Alexander Strauch, The Hospitality Commands (Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth, 1993). And obedience in mission flows out of immersion in theology, formation, and community. Listen to Jesus issue a commandment with new gospel power: “Love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35. NASB). Jesus told us to be hospitable. Paul, Peter, John and the writer of Hebrews made it clear that hospitality is an opportunity we must seize. It reflects our theology. It reveals our formation. It reproduces our community. Should we do anything less? 

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02.  Loving Beyond Loneliness

And yet loneliness lurks so often beneath our sociability. Have we become a community of isolated people? Could the discipline and mission of hospitality be central to God’s call to today’s church? We must open our eyes. Lonely people living in the soul-weakening prison of isolation are all around us. Crowded Pews and Lonely People was one tool God used to open my eyes to myself and to others. God’s Spirit prompted me to live the discipline of hospitality, to embark on the mission of hospitality. 

When I became an empty nester, natural meeting grounds disappeared. No more school programs or sports events for easy opportunities to mingle and meet. Moving into a new neighborhood without young children left me lonely. Isolation became a danger. It was then I returned to Jacobsen’s book. Her words helped lift me out of the pit into which I was sinking. Listen: “You should never complain that you’re lonely unless during the past week you have: done at least one kindness for someone who is worse off than you are; telephoned at least three persons to find out how they are getting along and not telling them your troubles; invited at least three persons to your home, even if the invitations were only casually asking a neighbor in for coffee; made plans to do at least one thing with someone else, even if it’s a shopping trip or taking someone on a drive.”Strauch, The Hospitality Commands; from a column on loneliness by Ruth Millett, 156.

No one would describe me as an introvert. Very few suspect that I can sink low. I’ve sometimes shared how down I have felt and my vulnerability has been met with, “But you never get low. That’s just not like Rachael.” That response is not hospitable. To be hospitable, meet people where they are, not where you want them to be either for your sake or because they’re Christians. As the life-shaping truth of spiritual theology inflames our hearts, as our soul-hunger to be spiritually formed in order to love like Jesus becomes our strongest appetite, as the Trinity-like passion for spiritual community compels us to connect profoundly with others, our spiritual mission to live the discipline of hospitality will release us to become cheerful givers to others. If we recognize that biblical commands to show hospitality are most often tied to an encouragement to exhibit brotherly and sisterly love, then something good will happen, first in our churches and then in our world. 

We will hear Peter tell us to “be hospitable to one another without complaint” (I Peter 4:9, NASB) and our hearts will rise up with desire. We will read the instruction: “Don’t forget to show hospitality” (Hebrews 13:2, NLTScripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Streams, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.), and the urge to spread the table of hospitality for others will fill us with joy. And we will be strengthened as we imagine what the party will be like when Jesus brings us to feast at the banquet of hospitality he will offer that will last forever. 

May we reveal the heart of Jesus through hospitality until we see him face to face and delight in his smile for eternity. Hospitality: it’s a spiritual discipline. It’s a spiritual mission that flows from spiritual theology toward spiritual formation and out of spiritual community. 

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03.  Tips for Practicing Hospitality: Living the Pattern

Spiritual Theology: Memorize Matthew 25:40 (NLT): “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.” Ponder and practice. 

Spiritual Formation: Develop a vision for one person at a time. Reflect on who that person already is and who they can become because of Jesus. Write your reflection in a “vision letter” to that person. 

Spiritual Community: Your temptation is to protect yourself from others. Follow the Spirit in releasing yourself for others. 

Spiritual Mission: Discover your heart. Ask not what you should do today to practice hospitality, but what you want to do today.