Brenda Halliburton - Welcoming a Stranger

Richard Wilson, a presenter at Friday’s special interest session “Welcoming a Stranger” reminded us that the immigration issues we are wrestling with in our churches are not public policy issues alone. The issues are also interpersonal, challenging how we view and live out the Christian understanding of hospitality. Scriptures remind us that we are to be like Abraham and Sarah, extending hospitality to strangers in our communities, because we may find that we are welcoming angels as our guests.

Presenter David Carro, who talked about the many ways immigrants are “actively” isolated each day, sensitized us even more. Little is said about ways to better understand the strangers among us, points out Carro.

As I reflected on each presenter’s words, I could not help but feel hope and expectation that a unified mission effort will, indeed, emerge from our conversation. Baptist clergy and lay servants from around the country shared insights from their experiences welcoming the stranger. And all of us were seeking to better understand the challenge of how to extend meaningful hospitality to the African, Burmese, Haitian and Latino immigrants who have come to this country seeking refuge and a better life.

This session broadened our understanding of hospitality beyond providing food and shelter by helping us hear that it must also include meeting the social, spiritual and physical needs of the stranger. Together we were seeking to transcend the distinctions and attitudes that have created barriers in our ministries, so that our individual and collective Christian witness will speak to the hospitality at that heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

I cannot help but believe that as a result of this session and the larger conference, Baptists will seek unity in mission efforts and a deeper understanding of what it means to be hospitable to the strangers in our midst. I pray that the work coming out of the New Baptist Covenant celebration will also make it possible for followers of Jesus to be a more hospitable people in the world, tearing down the dividing walls and leading the world through our witness toward a more excellent way!