Building Bold Hospitality

     “So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up
      the church.” 1 Corinthians 14:12

Everyone of us has gifts. Things at which come more naturally to us than to others. When the Holy Spirit comes to us and we are walking in Christ’s way those gifts become enhanced.
​
Paul says, “since we are eager for gifts”, we should “try to excel in those” and since we all have gifts to begin with it reasons out that we should strive to excel in all our gifts. In Corinthians Paul is talking about the gifts of the Spirit; wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, different tongues and interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:7 – 9). Each of us is open to any of these gifts with the abilities we have been given by God from birth. What makes this so important is the eagerness in which we strive to use these gifts.

As Christians, we must be eager to be used by God to move along His church. And to move along His church, we must share our gifts. Paul’s point in this passage could be in the phrase, “try to excel”. In our daily lives we try to excel in our business dealings. We work hard to improve and grow as parents, partners and neighbors, shouldn’t we work just as hard to grow our gifts for Christ?

As we begin working through our vision of Bold Hospitality, it is important for us to take inventory of our gifts. We as a congregation have so many talents and skills, many have been displayed, yet others lay waiting to be used. Over the next few weeks, and months we are going to begin exploring where our gifts lie. We are going to spend time working out what gifts we each bring to the table and how best we can use those gifts to “build up the church”.

We aren’t looking at the traditional sense of building a church. The days of just filling the pews are gone. What we are looking at, as Jill so skillfully stated at the July 16th board meeting, is bringing people to God. Our goal is no longer about numbers in the building. Our goal is reaching people for Christ. It is the goal of the 1st century church, the early days of the disciples as they spread the Word around the Mediterranean, Jesus is King, and God has redeemed His people through Jesus Christ. Our vision is to be a beacon of Christ’s love to our community in real and tangible ways.

We are looking to host those who need space to grow.

We are looking to share our resources with others so the message can be sent out.

We are looking to impact the lives of our neighbors in ways that make a difference.

Some of the suggestions we have received so far; offering our resources to the local schools, opening our facility to other groups that need a place to meet, being open to other church groups that may be needing a space to worship or pray, being a facility that meets the need of families with disabilities, all of these ideas can and will be met with boldness.

That boldness begins with us as a people. A people who are aware of their gifts and talents. A people who have taken inventory and have eagerly set out to excel in “building up the church”.

We have much to offer. And in this time of building, we have much to learn. Let us begin with learning what gifts and talents we each bring and how we can tie these together to excel at the vision of Bold Hospitality.

Kathy Hendrix