"Stay Awhile- Lessons in Divine Hospitality"

“Stay Awhile – Lessons in Divine Hospitality”

You may be familiar with the expression, “Why don’t you pull up a chair and stay awhile?”

In today’s fast-paced culture that expression might even seem a little quaint. But I’m becoming increasingly convinced that genuine hospitality is a gift that the church can give to anyone who’s exhausted from the rat race and ready to stop racing.

This Advent, beginning November 30, Covenant will offer a book study of Stay Awhile—Lessons in Divine Hospitality, which was written by Methodist pastor Kara Eidson. We will study this book on Thursdays at 12:30 p.m. and on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m., and if you’re interested but unable to make the sessions at Thursday noon or Sunday morning, we’d be happy to set up additional study groups on a day and time that works better. You can participate in the class sessions even if you don’t purchase or read the book, but I’m also happy to purchase a copy of the book for you if you’d like.

We would also love to hear from you about your own experiences of hospitality. When did someone’s welcome of you overwhelm you with gratitude? What lengths have you gone to in order to extend hospitality to someone else? How have you found consolation in those times when a long sought-after invitation was withheld and you had to continue searching for a place to belong?

For this year’s Advent Devotional booklet, we are asking for submissions of stories, poetry, art work, scriptural reflections, etc. about hospitality. We might think of how Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary sought a place to stay so that Mary could give birth to Jesus. We might think of Jesus’s promise “to prepare for us a place” in John 14. Please submit your contributions for this year’s Advent Devotional booklet to Pastor Jack at pastor@covenantpresbyterian.net by Friday, November 21.

I hope to see you in worship, when we worship God and also strive to extend to others the same Christ-like hospitality that we ourselves have received.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Jack