Hospitality

Last week in Crossroads we talked about our relationships with strangers or people whom we don't know very well. A major part of our discussion focused on the notion of hospitality, so I wanted to clarify what exactly I meant during class.

Often in today's Church when we think of hospitality we think of people, usually women, who like and are good at hosting events, providing food for Church activities, etc. These things are part of being hospitable, but they do not exhaust all of what it means to exhibit hospitality.

Two quick things: 1) Every Christian is called to be hospitable. "Hospitality" does not appear in any of the lists of spiritual gifts (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4) and all Christians are commanded to practice hospitality (Romans 12.13). I only say this because I fear that some of us, myself included, try to get out of things by saying "I'm not gifted that way." Well, we certainly can't say that about hospitality - it is not considered a spiritual gift in the New Testament and we are all commanded to be hospitable. We are not off the hook! 2) The word for hospitality in the New Testament is philoxenia, which is a combination of of two Greek root words - philos and xenos. Philos means love (as in Philadelphia - city of brotherly love) and xenos means strangers or others (as in xenophobia - fear of others). In other words, we are to have love for others around us. Let me be clear that Scripture teaches that this does not just apply to those whom we host at our homes or at a party or for whom we provide food at Church. No, we are instructed to love others, all of them, no matter where or when. That is a challenging message if I ever heard one!

This next week we'll be talking about our relationships at work and/or school. So it is my hope that you'll spend some time thinking about how these sorts of relationships faired for you this week. Were there any tensions? Were there some opportunities in which you honored God? Please be prepared to share as you feel comfortable.

I look forward to seeing all of you Sunday morning at 9:15!

Follow-Up from Sunday

By popular demand I am writing a short blog to ask a few simple questions.

Can you think of more TV shows, movies, books, etc that focus on human relationships? How are these relationships portrayed? Are parts of their portrayals redeemable?

The Real Jesus

Hello all. It's been awhile since we've had a new post here so I thought I would put something forward and see if I got any bites. Something I've been thinking about lately is "The Real Jesus". I have been reading in John and looking at exactly who Jesus said he is, what his disciples experience of Jesus was and what the people's experience was who came into contact with him. It has made me think of my personal experience of who Jesus is and think of the Jesus that has been presented to me throughout my upbringing and the Jesus that my past churches and our current church talks about. My thought and main question has become whether or not the Jesus I know is the Jesus that his disciples experienced, that those in the house churches in China experience, that the poor experienced, that the blind man in Jerusalem experienced. The things I'm discovering some exciting truths, and some difficult truths. It's a real challenge though. I'd like to hear the thoughts of anyone who reads this. Let it out!

--ADam--

Spiritual Gifts

This week we discussed 1 Corinthians 12-13 in class. Next week we'll be talking about 1 Corinthians 14. These three chapters deal with the issue of spiritual gifts in the life of the church...yes, even 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter"! Here is a quick rundown of what we talked about last week: Spiritual gifts are given by God to use for the benefit of the body of Christ and the motivation for the use of spiritual gifts should always be love.

However, we also talked quite a bit about how to determine the spiritual gifts God has given us. We admitted that spiritual gift inventories, while helpful in some ways, are not the best way of figuring out how God wants to use us in the church. Instead, a better way might be to simply start serving the church in whatever ways that we can and God will show us what our gifting is.

So what do you think about that? Is going and doing a good way of determining your gift(s)? What are yours, at least as you see them now, and how did you determine that?

See you guys Sunday!

Grace and peace

For Your Pondering...

This past week we talked about 1 Cor 10-11.16. We focused primarily on two things: 1) We need to be wary of how we are entangled with the world because being improperly connected to the "idols" out there can make us look bad in non-Christians' eyes and can hurt the unity that we share with one another; and 2) When we worship we should do so in ways which are appropriate (especially when leading) because we don't want to hinder the Gospel.

So what do you think?

Are there still idols in our world and are they empowered by evil forces as Paul says the ones in his world were? So what are some of these idols and how can we avoid them?

And (this one can just be rhetorical if you'd like!) are there ways in which you have distracted attention away from the Gospel? I'm sure that we all have at some point. So the question remains: what can we do as a faith community to help one another ensure that the Gospel is unhindered?

Don't forget that this Sunday Andrew will be leading us in a fun review of what we have talked about so far. So if you'd like read (or skim!) 1 Corinthians 1-11.16.

Grace and peace.

Crossroads Halloween Party!

We here at Crossroads had a great Halloween party on the 31st and so we thought that we should share some of the pics from the party. So, here are the pictures!



Alyssa (as a substitute teacher), Ginger (as a Hershey's kiss), and Alida (as a crayon) pretending to be scared of Amy W. (as a devil)!









Matt (as a crayon), Andrew (as an 80's tennis player...nice legs!), and Joe D. (as Babe Ruth) striking a pose!







Joe S. and Sarah (as boxers) getting ready to settle things like men!











And the real star or the party, the Sarah Palin pumpkin, carved in tag-team fashion by Joe D. and Ginger! Great job guys!























Aren't we a great looking group?!?

Thanks to everyone for coming to this event! Thanks to everyone for dressing up and making it a blast for all of us! Thanks to you for checking out this post! And a very special thanks to our beloved Cereal Killer, Hai, for hosting!

Amy's first post

Hi~ Happy Monday.
This is my first post...kind of intimidating because I feel like it should be something extra special. BUT rather than wait for something extra special to pop into my head (at the risk of having that never happen), I figured I'd just pop in and at least write something!!
If you are wondering what we do at Crossroads, its quite simple. We meet every Sunday (like Matt below said) and usually go through part of a series. Its great because its like a sermon, except you can have input and ask questions! Currently we are studying 1 Corinthians. Can I just say how great it is to have a PhD student going through that with us because it is one tough book!
Another one of the Crossroad's favorites is snack/social time. After worship, prayer, and announcements...we all run over to the back where there are snacks (usually some delectable high calorie dish), coffee, tea, and lemonade. We try to briefly catch up on each others' work week.

Overall its a good group...you should come try! (oh and if you already go to Crossroads, this may have been a boring post...so now its your turn to write something more interesting!! ).
What did you all think about the sermon on Sunday? Any lifestyle changes you are going to be trying to make?

OH I thought also, if someone has a prayer request that you feel comfortable writing on the blog, this could be a good place to share it and if we check it midweek we can all be praying for you during the week.