Diaconia? We call it service.
This sentence has stayed with me.
At first glance, hospitality and the Church do not seem to have much in common.
Here: guests, rooms, restaurants and service. There: worship, congregation, pastoral care and diaconia.
And yet both worlds are concerned with something remarkably similar: How do we encounter people?
In a good hotel, you quickly sense whether you are welcome. In church, it is really no different.
Someone walks through our door for the first time—perhaps curious, perhaps unsure.
Hospitality is then decided not by a perfect liturgy or a beautiful church leaflet, but often by very simple things: Am I being noticed?
In the hospitality sector, we would call much of this service.
In the Church, we have an old and weighty word for it: diaconia—service to others.
Of course, diaconia is more than service. A person is not a customer, and love of neighbour is not a commercial service.
But that is precisely why I find the comparison so compelling.
The Church can learn from good hospitality not merely to preach welcome, but to put it into practice.
And the hospitality sector? Perhaps it can learn from diaconia that the person in front of me is always more than a guest, a booking number or revenue.
For me, good hospitality ultimately begins with a very simple thought: Here, I am human. Here, I am at home.
Perhaps the Church and hospitality are sometimes closer than we think.
What might the Church learn from good hospitality?