20
April

Hospitality I


Currently Reading
Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future
By Ben J. Wattenberg
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Practice hospitality (Romans 12.3).

The essence of “hospitality” is found in the combination of the two words that make it up. The first part comes from the word xenos, “stranger”. Think xenophobia, fear of strangers or foreigners. The second part is from the word phileo, love. Think Philadelphia, “city of brotherly love.”

Hospitality is the love of strangers. I’ve always thought that one of things that makes the scriptures and the believing movement so unique is the orientation towards the alien, the stranger, the foreigner. I’d love to see a count of the number of times the words stranger, alien, foreigner appear in the Quran or in the Gitas and then to get a sense of what the attitude in those writings is towards them. Maybe they are as gracious as the scriptures. I hope so.

It is this love for the stranger that to me makes the Christ following movement the hope for the world of today and tomorrow. In a world of immigrants and xenophobia and terrorism, there is need for a leader who creates a culture and points to a kingdom that is open to anyone and everyone who repents and believes. Jesus is that leader. He makes Hindus, Muslims and Christians human. Those of us who have begun to walk in the way of Jesus are called to create this same culture and point to this same kingdom.

What do you think?

Is looking and pointing outward beyond our own ethnic, socio-economic, cultural group with a view to advance the Kingdom of Christ a part of Christ-following leadership?

Photographs

1] from right to left: Johan Geyser, Lead Teacher, Mosaic South Africa; Octavio Martinez, Founding Pastor, Sojourn; Erwin McManus, Lead Navigator, Mosaic Los Angeles; Me.

2] Octavio engaged in conversation with Wilma (Mosaic South Africa).

Into the Mystic…

Alex McManus
Pasadena, Ca
© 2005

1 comment

13
March

Eyes For The Missing

My five-year-old son, Michael, disappeared.

OK. It was only for a moment eleven years ago, but I
aged twenty years in that moment.

Have you ever lost anything really valuable?

The scriptures tell us that we cannot understand the
world in which we live and the history we create
without understanding this: Something really
valuable is missing and God wants it found.

Do you come to worship with a grateful heart, but are
mindful of those who are missing?

Not the regulars, the believers who know their way, but
the ones who do not even know there is a God who
misses them? If you do, it is because the wind of
God has passed over you.

The WIND.

The scriptures tell us that,

In beginning…the earth was empty, a formless
mass cloaked in darkness. And the wind of God
was hovering over the chaos. Gen 1.2

The wind came first.

In the conception of Jesus the wind blew over the virgin.

At the birth of the Jesus movement the wind howled
in Jerusalem.

In the creation of the heavens and the earth the wind
hovered over the chaos.

Where there is chaos, darkness, and emptiness, the
winds appear. It has been said, “the church exists by
mission as fire exists by burning.” Wind is my
metaphor for mission.

God has given to us a mission to find the missing.

The fact that someone is missing is chaos, darkness,
emptiness. The fact that there are those who set out
to find them is wind.

Make no mistake, traveling into the emptiness can be
perilous, even for wind. But we
go because it is a mission motivated by love.

It’s true. God calls to action, some look for nurture.
God promises trouble, while others seek comfort
and safety. God demands attention, some look
around to see what others will do about it.

But, a growing few simply put on their battle gear,
without regard for their own reputations and safety,
put their eyes on Jesus, and, in an effort to rescue
those God misses most, follow him.
They find others like themselves on the way, and
join with them.

People of the wind they are.

into the mystic…

© alex mcmanus, 2005

1 comment

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