Hospitality

This is a couple of paragraphs from an excellent post about hospitality from Missions Catalyst. –Bryon

In her snappy little book, Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures, Sarah Lanier opens our eyes to a fascinating reality: People from “hot-climate cultures,” generally in the southern hemisphere, tend to value relationships over task, and in the process excel at hospitality. People from “cold-climate cultures,” generally in the northern hemisphere, tend to value task over relationship, and in the bargain struggle (to put it mildly) with loving strangers.

If you’re a hot-culture person, can I ask you a favor? Teach the rest of us how. After I’d spoken on hospitality to my church recently, a mysterious Russian man named Alex came up to me and said, “What you ask them to do, they won’t do. Tell them to go to the Arabs. Watch them. Copy them. Then they can do what you ask them to.” Many of us need to be schooled in hospitality.

HT: Missions Catalyst