From the District President
Hebrews 13:1-2 “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.”
Summer can be a busy season with outdoor activities, summer sports, and vacations invading our normal routines. It is also a busy time in the District as new graduates are commissioned or ordained and installed. Tack on some ministry moves and installations and the schedule of a district president quickly fills.
One of my greatest joys is welcoming workers, new and old, into the Nebraska District. For many years we have been helping new seminary graduates and their families as they move from the seminary into congregations. We call it “Seasons of Change.”
I meet with congregation leaders toward the end of May, before the family arrives, to help the congregation consider how they will plan to show hospitality to their new pastor and family. As many of us have not moved recently (if at all), it is hard to recognize the family upheaval that is a part of their lives. For many of these candidates, this is the third move in three years. They are also moving from a very open seminary community with more fluid relationships to a more established community and static set of relationships. Communities and churches are generally wonderful and friendly, but many of those deep relationships are already established.
This is true not only for new candidates and their families, but also new pastors and new people moving into a community or a congregation. As friendly as you might be, it is often challenging to find time to maintain current friendships, much less take time for a new relationship.
The words of Hebrews 13 echo again. “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
I am not suggesting your new pastor or his wife or a new visitor to church is an angel, but we do need to be aware of how we treat the outsider. You were once an outsider. Ephesians 2:19, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Romans 5:8, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
This is not only how we are called to treat our new (or old) pastor, but how in Christ we treat one another and everyone.
In September those same leaders, with their new pastor and wife, will gather to review how the welcome plan is progressing and how to start setting goals for the future. We will also dive into how we deal biblically with conflict. Here, also, hospitality and Hebrews 13 comes into play. Brothers and sisters are not void of conflict, but even as we struggle, we are still family. The love we have received in Christ is the love we reflect to one another, confronting sin and showing grace.
All of this is our privilege as followers of Christ. It is my privilege to serve you all as together we serve by serving others.
In Christ,
Rev. Richard Snow, President, Nebraska District LCMS
This article was originally published in the July 2024 District Reporter, available here. Subscribe to the Reporter here.