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Have you ever received transformational hospitality? Early in our ministry, my wife and I served as seminary instructors in Donga, Nigeria. I was invited to preach at one of my student’s congregations in a very rural area. As usual, we were seated in the front of the church and given bottles of water, Coke, and Maltina (a non-alcoholic beer that’s an acquired taste). In full view of the gathered congregation, we worshiped, preached, and sweated through our Sunday best, gratefully fortified by plenty of liquids.

But we weren’t ready for what came next. After the service and greetings, we were led to the home of a deacon and seated by ourselves at a table abundantly provisioned with rice, pounded yams, sauce, chicken, goat, and a lot of foods we didn’t recognize. Everyone—men, women, children—looked at us, beaming ear to ear. We prayed, filled our plates, and felt distinctly uncomfortable. Why wasn’t everyone else eating? After some sheepish questions we learned that this family, including some very hungry-looking children, wanted nothing more than to watch us enjoy their best cuisine. They would only eat if any food was left over.

That day my understanding of hospitality was transformed by a family that put feeding strangers over feeding themselves. The author of Hebrews writes, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Heb. 13:1-2). This likely refers to the three strangers who visited Abraham and Sarah and brought news of Sarah’s coming pregnancy in her old age (Gen. 18:1-15). Abraham displayed the same hospitality as my Nigerian hosts when he insisted that the three visitors stay with him to eat, drink, and rest (18:3).

It’s fair to say that hospitality plays a somewhat diminished role in our personal and congregational lives presently. Stickers on our front doors shoo solicitors away, and our yards bristle with “No Trespassing” signs. There is little time for serendipitous encounters in lives filled with sports, meetings, and work. Even on Sundays we often move quickly from one event to the next, leaving little time for the kind of hospitality lauded in Hebrews 13 (or Rom. 12:13, or 1 Pet. 4:9). In our annual denominational survey, only 64% of respondents said it is definitely or mostly true that they know their neighbors, and only 27% said they knew the people in their churches’ neighborhoods. Clearly there is room to grow.

God’s hospitality is so transformative that Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, gave his life so that we might become members of God’s own family. 1 Peter 2 tells us that we “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,” that once we “were not a people, but now … are the people of God” (1 Peter 2:9-10). Once we were “foreigners and strangers,” but Christ has made us “fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Eph. 2:19). Hospitality is central to God’s heart, and we are the transformed beneficiaries of God’s beaming smile.

As I write these words in May 2025, I am aware that in a few weeks leaders from all parts of the Christian Reformed Church will be gathering at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont., for synod. In the past few years, hospitality has been difficult for the CRC, especially as it relates to our discussion of human sexuality. Perhaps there are some who believe that hospitality requires acquiescing to sexual relationships that didn’t fit a historically biblical understanding of sexuality. Perhaps there are some who assume, unconsciously or consciously, that any kind of behavior toward those they disagree with is justified as long as it produces fidelity to what they believe is correct doctrine.

Transformative hospitality is different. Being hospitable doesn’t mean that we must agree with the people we encounter at work and in our neighborhoods. If that were so, none of us could have become God’s people. It also doesn’t mean that righteous ends are achieved through means that are incongruent with grace-filled Christian love. If that were so, none of us would want to be God’s people.

Transformative hospitality is something very different indeed. Transformative hospitality is the light shining from God’s toothy smile, warming us at God’s table of abundance, inviting us to enjoy grace we cannot earn at a cost we cannot imagine.