From Sampler to Sower

So, you’ve mastered the art of harnessing the power of friendliness and because of word of mouth and word of mouse, new teens are checking out your youth ministry.  Now that they’re here, how do you make sure they “stick?”

The answer, in a word, is hospitality.  Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary defines it as “the cordial and generous reception and entertainment of guests or strangers socially or commercially.”  My favorite definition however comes from Washington Irving who said “There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at once at his ease.” (from his story “Christmas Eve” in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.)

I like that a lot.  Genuine hospitality is hard to define and when you try to do so you end up with a cold fish of a phrase like “the cordial and generous reception and entertainment of guests or strangers socially or commercially.”  (No offense, George, Charles and Noah.)  But while hospitality is hard to define, it’s easy to recognize.  Some places, some people, simply have a way of putting a guest at ease which is immediately felt by all.

But more than something that we do, hospitable is something that we are.  Danny Meyer, author of Setting the Table puts it this way:

“Hospitality is present when something happens for you.  It is absent when something happens to you.  These two simple concepts—for and to—express it all.”

As long as we equate hospitality with all the things we do to our visitors, we miss the point.   Instead we must be hospitable for them, and most of that hospitality takes place long before they ever visit.  If I were writing the dictionary, I’d define hospitality as “the way we show others that we had them in mind before they ever came be our guest.”  Maybe it’s the Wesleyan in me, but hospitality is prevenient.

So how do we become a hospitable youth group?

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At Water’s Edge, we believe in friendship evangelism, and we understand that our job it to equip teenagers to share their faith with their friends. Our goal is to design a weekly youth program which makes sharing your faith is as easy as saying “Hey, do you want to come to Water’s Edge with me?” But how does a youth ministry make sure they are equipping their teens to reach out in this way, rather than using a professed faith in friendship evangelism as a way to pass the buck of responsibility for evangelism to their teens?

This weekend I’ll be leading a couple workshops entitled “Building a Friend-Friendly Youth Event” at our District’s fall retreat.  That really has me thinking about friendship evangelism and how we equip our teens for it.  In my mind there are two closely related aspects to success in this area.  The first is to unleash the power of the personal invitation.  The second is to practice hospitality so that when the invitation is accepted, guests are more likely to stick.  I’ll be tackling these two topics in a couple of posts.  And I’d love to have some feedback before I head off to retreat.  Sound off in the comments below.

Now, as for harnessing the power of friendship: (more…)

Recently, Richard Reising of BeyondRelevance.com posted a new video which asked the question “What would happen if Starbucks marketed itself like Starbucks?”

The point of the video, in Richard’s words:

Have you ever tried really hard to make a point and when people say they get it, you are just not sure they do? Sometimes it takes us seeing our world through new eyes–something that it is hard to do as believers. Sometimes a little bit of juxtaposition does the trick.

So granted, he’s not trying to suggest that the Church should be more like Starbucks, but to point out the awkwardness of so much of what we do.  However, that got me thinking.  What could the church learn from Starbucks about creating an attractive and friendly atmosphere?

So I went on a research trip to Starbucks.  No seriously, it was all about the research.

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