I am one of those people who like the house to be clean when people come over.
In fact, our family joke is that you have to have a party or have company over in order to get the house cleaned!
Why is that? Why do we think we have to have things ”in order” in order to show hospitality?
Why does “perfection” stop us from being inviting or welcoming?
I do want people to know that we planned for them to be there and the space feel restful and inviting rather than cluttered and chaotic. But too often in my past life, I didn’t practice hospitality because I didn’t like how my house looked or I was just too busy to make it happen!
I do believe that hospitality is a PRACTICE. It’s a spiritual practice of welcome.
According to the dictionary and wikipedia,
Welcome is a word that means: 1. Received with pleasure and hospitality into one’s company or home: a welcome guest. 2. Giving pleasure or satisfaction; agreeable or gratifying: a welcome respite from hard work. : willingly permitted or admitted
Hospitality : the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.
What does Welcome mean in 2017? What does it really mean to you?
Think about a time when you have you felt the most welcome…
What was it about this time or place or people?
What does it mean to be an open and inviting person or to provide an open and inviting space for people to be in?
A safe space for discussion
A peaceful place for rest
An inviting space for relaxation and conversation
Listening instead of pontificating
Waiting for others to join in rather than demanding that they do so
Serving rather than being served
Bringing peace instead of conflict and fear
Working for the Greater Good of all people not my own way
Where do you feel the most welcome in your life?
Why?
What places provide you with the most welcome and hospitality?
Why?
What attributes make a place welcoming and inviting?
Are there places that have been less than hospitable to you?
How did that make you feel?
What things stop you from providing welcome to strangers or even to friends?
One spring I was traveling to San Francisco and I was working for a friend at his church. The friend who was going to be my host had a death in his family and had to leave town. I was stuck in a strange city and didn’t really know how to get from place to place. This was way before uber and lyft and smart phones. Thankfully I had some friends who were willing to take me in, their daughter gave up her room for me to stay in and bunked with her brothers. These folks didn’t want me to have to stay in a strange hotel in a strange city by myself. They welcomed me in the midst of their regular life, even in the midst of remodeling!
Another time, my husband and I were doing a summer course in the UK and taking time to check out communities of faith doing alternative worship. At one of these, a new friend, we had just met at the gathering, gave us a ride all the way back from London to Oxford. So instead of us having to race to make the last train, we had a beautiful nighttime tour of London in a convertible and a free ride back to Oxford!
Both of these experiences showed me that I knew very little about the gift or the practice of hospitality. And both of these acts of hospitality and welcome encouraged me to begin! Rob and I now have hospitality and welcome as big part of our life and our community, but it all began with baby steps!
Sadly, 2017, Fear and terrorism have caused us to stop reaching out to the stranger.
If we’ve ever had our hospitality or our generosity abused, then we are hesitant to share again.
Sometimes we need help to get started.
Partner with others who have the gift of hospitality.
Help each other!
Use your gifts to share food, shelter, etc with those who need it.
Jesus said “When you do it unto the least of these you’ve done it unto me.”
Jesus said to start with a cup of cold water….
Start small. Baby steps. Begin with those closest to you!
Remember that hospitality is hard work. It’s taxing, it takes effort and focus and giving up things in order to provide space for other people. It’s a risk. You provide space and time for people you may or may not know and you may or may not like or agree with and with no guarantee that they will be appreciative.
That’s why so many of us hang out with people just like our selves because taking the extra step and going the extra mile to hang out with and get to know people unlike ourselves takes time and intentionality.
Here is a prayer station my friend Archie Honrado and I created for the National Youth Workers Convention this year. You can use it as a part of a larger prayer room like the At The Table Sacred Space found at freergangeworship.com or as response to a talk or sermon on hospitality and welcome. This is a prayer station/prayer response designed to help us pray and take action around welcome and hospitality.
START HERE:
Set up the station (or multiples of the same station around your worship space) or use this as a corporate response for your entire community following a teaching on welcome and hospitality.
Have a welcome mat in front of each table (station) that people will stand on as they read the signs and pray at the station. The response: people will write down on a paper welcome mat, specific ways they want to practice hospitality and welcome in the days and weeks ahead.
If you use this as a corporate response where everyone responds at the same time. Have small welcome mats printed out and place a stack in the pews or on the chairs. You can pass these out after the talk/sermon and have pens or pencils available on the chairs or in the pews so people can write down their responses on their welcome mats. Have everyone do the response together giving them examples of things they can “practice,” and giving them time to respond. After a few minutes, have them hold their welcome mat papers and pray this prayer together out loud.
PRAYER:
Lord help us to bring the welcome of your love and light to all those we meet this week.
Help us to provide welcome to the stranger and to those who are not like us.
Help us to put aside our fears and our busyness and anything that prevents us from providing welcome and practicing hospitality.
Show us tangible ways to bring welcome.
Provide us with partners and helpers who can show us how to be more welcoming.
Thank you that you welcome us in your love each day.
Help us to live in this welcome and in this love so we can share it.
AMEN! 
PRAYER STATION Signage to print out:
Welcome People to the TABLE
How can we PURSUE Jesus, FOLLOW Him and Shine God’s love and light on our friends and practice hospitality and welcome in our homes and in our communities?
In our neighborhoods?
In our churches?
In our schools?
In our work places?
On our teams?
And in our Clubs?
Where and HOW can you practice hospitality in your neighborhood?
At work?
At School? Etc.
Have the conversation with Jesus about Welcome & Hospitality.
How does Jesus feel about welcoming the stranger?
How do you feel about welcome? What are your fears or hesitations?
Talk to Jesus about them.
Pray for people and groups who do not feel welcomed in our churches and in our neighborhoods.
Write down on the small welcome mats ways you want to welcome& include others…
Take it home to continue to pray!
Pray for people and groups who do not feel welcomed in our churches and in our neighborhoods.
Pray for people and/or groups who don’t feel welcome in our churches and often in our cities and neighborhoods too.
Examples:
- Have lunch with someone who thinks differently than you and listen to his/her story. Ask questions, be open &really get to know them
- Have some new friends over for dinner and learn about their lives. Listen, ask questions, don’t judge.
- Doing something you love to do? Invite someone to join you
- Throw a block party for your neighborhood
- Make cookies and deliver them to all your neighbors, not just the ones you know well.
- Go to a meeting or gathering of a group that is very different from you and go as a learner. Listen! Learn! Ask Questions. Be present. Don’t judge.
This is a past post from 2014 from Andy Wade on hospitality, our theme this month —
The best and brightest were invited. But one by one they made excuses for why they couldn’t come. Undaunted, the host quickly sent word into the surrounding community – all were welcome, come and dine! Was the point of this story injustice at the table? I hadn’t really read this story like that before. But this time it seemed to stand out like a glowing neon sign. Luke 14:16-24. This was one of our passages for reflection at our annual Celtic Prayer Retreat this past weekend. The story begins:
Jesus said, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’” (Luke 14:16b-20)
It’s all about being ready to drop everything when Jesus returns, right? Well, maybe a little bit. If we read the story in context, we could still be confused if we’re not paying attention. Right before this story are two short stories, one about humility at a wedding banquet – do you choose the place of honor or the place of humility? The other is about who to invite when you throw a party – basically, don’t invite those who are important and can return the favor, invite the poor and the outcast, invite those typically excluded from the party. (Luke 14:12-14)
Again, it would be easy to hear these stories as simply speaking to the attitudes of our hearts – a kind of instruction for personal holiness and piety. But as I read and re-read this parable something broke through, something I hadn’t noticed before.
“So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ” (Luke 14:21-24)
“There is still room.” These were the words that stood out to several of us at the retreat. Important words, to be sure, but there was more. As I reflected on this story I began to see something else. Jesus was not speaking to me as an individual, but to us as a people. The Israelites were set apart not to live in isolation but to demonstrate a better way of living, a way that put God in the center of all life. And they were then to become a nation not of walls, but of welcoming, a people who would become “a blessing to all the nations of the earth.” (Gen 12:2, 22:18, 26:4 and elsewhere).
Jesus’ ministry is packed with examples of breaking the rules about who is welcome and who is excluded. Making a point of going to the marginalized and “least of these”, Jesus threatens the status quo of social religious norms. Even if we “get” this message, it’s often all too easy for us to project this message onto the Jews of Jesus’ day. This was their problem.
What if we enter this parable by first asking, “Where do we see ourselves in this story?” Do we see the Jews as those invited first and ourselves as the guests invited later? Jesus’ audience in this story is primarily Jewish, after all. Or, as mentioned earlier, we might see ourselves as those invited first and this as a warning to pay attention to put Jesus first in our priorities. But how often do we see ourselves as the host of the party?
In re-hearing this story I discovered an ethical “thin place” between the here-and-now kingdom of God, and the yet-to-come kingdom of God. My actions here and now not only reflect the priorities of God’s kingdom to come, they create doorways into that kingdom today, both for those who are invited to the table and the ones who host the party.
Just as the Israelites were called to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth, so we who follow Jesus are called to do the same. In fact, when you look at the people compelled to come in from the streets and byways, they’re the very ones excluded by the pious followers of God. The victims of injustice at the table. In contrast, Jesus spends much of his time loving and partying with those who have been excluded, marginalized, rejected. Then Jesus compels us, “Come, follow me.”
So the questions that kept challenging me were, “Who’s on my invite list? Who’s excluded?” These are not simply theological questions where I can give the right answer in my head, but in my life make lists which exclude. Jesus told this story not just to make a point, but to make a change.
So I leave you with this question: is there justice at your table?
This month, one of our themes on Godspace is hospitality. Take a look at a post from Beth Booram on hospitality —
I was hugging someone goodbye recently when she commented, “Oooh, you’re a good hugger. Thank you!” Her comment seemed genuine and encouraged me because of my awareness that this “good hug” was given with intention. It’s part of what it means for me to offer hospitality. Ever since my husband, David, and I moved into our retreat center and home and began welcoming guests, we’ve been students of how best to receive them into sacred and nourishing space. Our approach has developed over time as we’ve learned and experimented. Almost always, unless a guest conveys otherwise, our hospitality includes a warm and hearty hug.
Booram Retreat Center
Friends, family and retreatants who come to us often make the comment, even as they step through the front door, that they feel peace—shalom—upon entering. We hear them speak of how their lives are chaotic and disordered, including the space in which they live. Many parents come for day or overnight retreats just to get away from the constant commotion of children. Pastors and ministry leaders express gratefulness to have a quiet and serene place to tuck into and disconnect from the demands of ministry. And many guests take the time to tell us how soothing it is to be enveloped by an environment that is calm, peaceful, beautiful and well-ordered.
I feel tremendous joy when I hear affirmations like these. A good part of my daily work as a spiritual director, writer and retreat facilitator employs my mind, mouth and ears. In preparing our space to be hospitable, I use my hands to scrub, cook, create and set in place. It’s all for the purpose of preparing a haven of rest and safety for those who come; who need to find respite from their pressure-filled lives and cluttered homes.
When David and I moved from our suburban home into this urban home that houses Sustainable Faith Indy, we began to develop a number of consistent practices to set the table for our guests to feel welcomed. First off, we made sure that our aesthetics were serene and minimal. In our first floor public space where small groups and teams gather, we carefully chose soothing paint colors and well-placed but scant decorations. In our guest rooms, we did the same. A simple Celtic cross hangs on the wall with modest furnishings including a comfortable bed, chair and desk.
Never before have we been as consistent in maintaining a clean home that is in good working order as we are now. We experience this manual labor as part of our sacred work, formation and growth. When I cook and clean, I’m often aware that I’m doing so for someone who will need to be nourished by it. David, as well, would tell you that he’s grown in his own responsibility and thoughtfulness as he changes furnace filters each month and shovels snow off the walk. We are happy—really happy—to put our hands to the task of welcoming our visitors with great care.
When guests arrive they will notice quiet, contemplative music echoing throughout the entry and stairway toward the second and third floors. It’s music that was also chosen very intentionally. Whether Gregorian Chants, classical instrumental music or a beautiful film score, our hope is that each person will feel calmed and quieted by what they hear. Once visitors are welcomed, a cup of hot tea or coffee is offered, as well as a pass by the buffet in the dining room where fresh fruit, nuts and chocolate abound.
Beyond the physical labor to prepare the space there is important work to be done behind the scenes in our own souls. When our guests remark that our place is “full of something” that helps them rest and feel the presence of God, we know that it’s not just the tangible environment. Each morning, David and I enter the day slowly with time to de-clutter our own minds and hearts. How we come to our day and our work, at rest and settled, open and available, is also part of our hospitable intentions. We sense that the prayers we pray linger in us as well as within the walls of our dwelling, offering the Spirit’s presence and peace to those who walk through its front door.
As I live out my calling, I’m devoted to providing hallowed space and time for individuals and groups to experience healing and repair. I pray that our hospitality and hugs will be for them an entrée into the rest of God and support them in becoming harbingers of Christ’s peace on earth.
Beth Booram is the co-founder and director of Sustainable Faith Indy, an urban retreat center in Indianapolis, where she leads The School of Spiritual Direction and offers individual and group spiritual direction. Beth has authored several books, including Starting Something New: Spiritual Direction for Your God-given Dream. (Intervarsity Press, May/2015)
By Tom Sine —
Friends of all ages tell me they tell me they are slammed by the growing pressure on their daily lives. Are you experiencing a time crunch trying to keep up with work pressure, time for relationships, working out, screen time plus a little time for being present to God and Neighbor?
You are not alone. Part of the reason for the growing pressure is that we seem to be living in a world changing at warp speed. Often there is another reason…many of us haven’t discovered how to create the disciplines we need to CREATE OUR BEST LIVES.
Too many of us are settling for less and missing God’s best. Most of our evangelical churches have courses on discipleship and mainline churches have classes on formation. These courses do offer help to many in terms of our spiritual lives.
However, few of these classes give people much help in really creating their best timestyles and lifestlyes to enable us to actually create and live our best lives as followers of a Jesus who calls all of us to put first things first. I sure find I need help with this and I bet many of those reading this do to.
I am sure many of you remember a book a few years ago called The Purpose Driven Life. Christine and I actually wrote a book that was published 3 months before that, titled: Living on Purpose, Finding God’s Best for Your Life! With Baker Books that is still available in the E version. However, we have not been afflicted with 52 million sales.
Living on Purpose for followers of Jesus always starts by finding an intentional way to make God’s purposes our purposes. Failing to do this our jobs, our economic pressures, our kids activities, our consumer and screen time addictions largely define the direction and quality of our lives.
Then when these pressures and addictions cause us to crash and burn we turn to God to help bail us bail out. However, few of us ask our God to help us discover a new reason for being. If you seriously want to discover God’s best for your life I urge you to consider making God’s purposes your purposes…in a new intentional way.
In Living on Purpose we urge readers to make God’s purposes our purposes. Remember when Jesus announced how he intentionally connected his life purposes to God’s compassionate purposes for a people and a world?
Listen again as he reads from the powerful words of God’s purposes from the prophet Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is on me because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release for the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19.
Do you want to find God’s best for your life? Then follow Jesus by also making God’s compassionate purposes for a people and a world your purposes to.
In Living on Purpose we offer a brief “active listening process” for small groups of disciples that also want to make God’s purposes their purposes. Here is a brief version of how to help one another to listen to diverse ways God is speaking to all of us. It might help you and your small us formulate a clear purpose statements….to help us take the first step in creating your best lives…in turbulent times like these:
- First invite everyone in your listening group to prayerfully study scripture during the week, starting with Christi’s purpose statement, to discern how God may be calling you invest your life to make a little difference in the lives of others;
- Then invite everyone to spend the next week listening to the needs of others or threats to God’s good creation that stirs your spirit. This too could be a part of God’s call on your life;
- Week three make a list of what you believe are your natural and your spiritual gifts. Also make a list of your broken places and areas of addiction. God can often do more by using our shortcomings to make a difference in the lives of others than our gifts;
- Next draft a beginning mission statement for your life or family that incorporates that scripture that calls you beyond yourself;
- Identify one specific way you can give weekly expression to your calling statement either in your work life or discretionary time and share it with your group:
- Use your calling statement to re-invent your timestyles and liftestyles to invest your time and resources in what matter most…including daily time to be present to God and weekly time to make a little difference in the lives of others.
- Invite those in your group to celebrate every step forward as you help one another to create your best lives by learning to live on purpose.
For example, Ian and Judy drafted a family mission statement stating they felt God was called to be the hospitality of Jesus in their neighborhood. They invited each of their three kids to take turns to invite different neighbors over for dinner every Wednesday night. Ian and Judy were surprised and delighted that their kids actually became invested in creating new ways to be offer welcoming hospitality their guest each week,
Fred, a corporate executive at firm in Canada placed a three-year cap on his salary of his administrative team to upgrade salaries of lowest wage workers. Janet freed up an hour a week to start tutoring kids in her local elementary school who were struggling.
“Nothing could be more important for pastors, church planters or small group leaders to empower busy people than helping them discern how to find a sense of focus for their lives. Wouldn’t you like to enable your people:
- to live with a clear sense of biblical purpose;
- to use this sense of purpose to become whole life disciples… freeing up time to be present to both God and neighbors;
- to create not only a more purposeful way of life but also a festive way of life than any thing that instagram envy culture can offer! ‘
What is your way to give expression to your sense of God’s call on your life?
Write and tell us how you plan to create your best life this summer by putting first things first. We would like to share your examples. twsine@gmail.com www.newchangemakers.com
This post was first published on V3 movement blog.
by Christine Sine
I am writing this from Edinburgh where Tom and I have landed after our wonderful retreat time on Iona. As I reflect on these first 10 days of this celebration of our 25th anniversary, I am very aware of the lavish hospitality with which we have been blessed. From our time in London where we stayed with a community of people we had never met before, to visits in Durham and now in Edinburgh with friends we have known for many years, the richness of God’s hospitality to us is almost overwhelming. And then of course there was Iona, a very special place that has given the gift of hospitality to thousands over the centuries. All so special.
Today I recognize myself as both a guest in God’s world and a host for God’s world. All I receive is a generous gift of God’s lavish bounty. Beauty, abundance, joy, all these I have received and much more. I pray that I will always take notice, always be grateful and always be willing to share, giving generously just as I have been given to.
Celtic Christians saw themselves as hospites mundi, or guests of the world, living lightly on this earth and not becoming attached to possessions or to one location. These followers of Christ, saw all of life as a pilgrimage, a journey towards God on which they were dependent on God for daily provision.
Celtic Christians also believed that hospitality was not only meant to be a custom in their homes, it was a key into the kingdom of God. They were not only guests but also hosts. To offer hospitality was seen as receiving Christ into their midst and fulfilling the law of love.
View from our B & B on Iona
My visit to Iona has made me very aware of my status as a guest and my responsibility as a host in God’s world. Every time someone prepares a meal for me, smiles at me, helps me with my bags, shares their hopes and joys with me, I am a recipient of Gods hospitality. Every time I give a smile, say thank you, acknowledge the generosity of friends and strangers, I am becoming a host for God. And in Seattle, even from a distance we are hosting friends and strangers alike in our home. I pray that I will always share with joy, reach out with compassion and embrace with God’s love.
What Is Your Response?
As I continue to travel over this next month I plan to reflect more on my status as both guest and host. There are two questions I will ask myself each day that I encourage you to contemplate too.
- What have I received today as a gift from God?
- What have I given today as a thank offering for God’s hospitality?
By Lilly Lewin
If I could go back to my 20 something self and to my 30 something self, I would tell her that she needs to stop with the over busyness and packed agenda and the intense desire to perform! and instead, take the time to be still and get outside in nature and start learning to practice silence and solitude. We can not keep pouring out our cups if they are empty! Solitude and Silence restore our souls and then we have the space to fill up our cups and we will be able to hear from God again.
So in the midst of this weekend, a long holiday weekend here in the States, make the time to be alone. make the time to stop the ‘to do list’ and be still. Make the time to get outside, take a walk, breathe! Saturate your soul with silence and solitude, even if it’s just 15 minutes! or even start with 5! then look at your calendar and plan a half day or even a whole day to be quiet with God sometime in July!
I find i need to make silence& solitude an appointment or schedule silence as a meeting on my calendar so it will actually happen! and in the midst of our crazy world we need silence and solitude more than ever ! Regardless of our age!
WE ALL NEED MORE REST AND MORE SILENCE THAN WE THINK WE DO!
And what would our world look like, if we started teaching our kids to practice silence and solitude before they reached the “burn out” stage of life?
What if we teach them how to experience God in nature, to take time to be still without devices or media? to take a chair or blanket outside and look at the clouds or the stars? Teaching them how to listen to the still small voice of God? and help kids of all ages see that quiet is a good thing, not a scary one!
That’s my prayer today…for all of us to make time to saturate our souls with silence, solitude,
and the beauty of God.
Make an appointment to be still. Mark your calendar and take a meeting with yourself and God outside, or somewhere quiet and just be still.
Saturate yourself with silence and allow Jesus to restore your soul!
“Solitude–when you get saturated with silence and landscape, then you need an interior work, psalms, scripture, meditation But first saturation. How much of this is simply restoration of one’s normal human balance?” Thomas Merton.
By Lynne Baab—
I speak and teach a lot about the Sabbath because I have kept a Sabbath for more than 30 years. Plus I have written a book, a Bible study guide, and many articles about it. When I speak or teach, I get two questions quite frequently: what’s the difference between a Sabbath and a day off, and what do you do on your Sabbath? I’ll use some thoughts about the first question as a bridge to my answer to the second question.
A day off and a Sabbath are similar because they are both a day to stop working. Many people, however, have found that a day off can easily become a harried blur of errands and chores with nothing Sabbath-like in it. So what is the difference?
Watercolor illustration by Dave Baab
Part of the difference lies in a person’s intent, and the intent shapes the actions on the Sabbath day. The two versions of the Ten Commandments have two different reasons to keep the Sabbath day, which illuminate two of my three significant Sabbath intentions.
- Remember creation.
In Exodus 20:11, the reason for the Sabbath goes back to creation: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” Because God is our Creator, and God rested on the seventh day, we stop our own productivity and remember that God made us. We also remember that everything good we have comes from our loving Creator.
Many of the Sabbath keepers I interviewed for my book and articles find that the best way to draw near to God on the Sabbath is to enjoy nature: a walk, bike ride, beach, or garden. On the Sabbath we are invited to enjoy God as Creator.
- Remember freedom from slavery.
In Deuteronomy 5:15, we are invited to keep a Sabbath because we have been freed from slavery. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” We know that in Christ, we have been freed from sin, evil, death and fear of death. The Sabbath is a day to celebrate the freedom God gives.
For most people, spending a day running errands or doing housework doesn’t feel like freedom. What activities do you need to stop in order to feel free? What activities help you feel free? The answers to those questions should shape your Sabbath day.
- Stopping. The Hebrew root word that “Sabbath” comes from means stop, cease, desist, or rest. Stopping much of our activity one day a week helps us remember God is God and we are not. We are not in charge. We are not at the center. We are not indispensible. We stop work so we can know, deep in our hearts, that Someone Else runs the universe and we do not.
I check my email first thing in the morning on my Sabbath day, and then I don’t look at it for the rest of the day. Why? So I can act on the truth that I am not indispensible. (I also experience freedom from email for a day.)
What else do I do? My husband and I spend about 45 minutes praying together on our Sabbath day. Half of that time is prayers of thankfulness. God is Creator and has freed us from so many forms of slavery. Taking the time to notice the good gifts and the various forms of freedom in our lives helps my husband and me lift our focus off of the hard things of life.
My major Sabbath activity is reading novels. Someone Else is running the universe and I can relax. I sometimes cook, skype with family members, or sit on a bench at the beach or in a park. Sometimes I go to the gym and enjoy experiencing the profound truth that God created my body. The day has no “shoulds” about it. I stay out of my home office so I won’t be tempted to work, and I stay out of stores so I won’t be tempted to focus on what I don’t have.
The Sabbath is a day to stop our everyday activities so we can experience God as Creator – the One who gives every good gift – and Redeemer – the One who frees us from slavery. The intent shapes the day.
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