Travel Like Dave
An Experiment in Hospitality as Spiritual Practice
The Outreach and Service Committee is proposes inviting Central Plains congregation to participate in an experiment with receiving hospitality as a spiritual practice. We think every congregation would benefit from this kind of experience. So we are proposing a process of congregational visitation we’re calling, “Travel like Dave.” We imagine the following component to the experiment:
We think will be a fun, energizing, and relationship building way to begin to challenge our congregations to grow in their understanding of offering and receiving hospitality where God’s kingdom appears in our midst, particularly as we minister to the poor, the hungry, the prisoner and the stranger.
Planning Guide
Conversation Guide
- Outreach and Service Committee invites all congregations to participate in sending a carload of church members to visit another congregation, preferably, though not necessarily, outside their immediate community.
- The visitation will include being hosted by a sister congregation for a Saturday night-Sunday morning time of fellowship and worship (and if it includes a potluck Sunday noon, that would be OK too).
- Outreach and Service Committee will be available to help facilitate visits for congregations who feel they need help with that.
- Outreach and Service Committee will provide a guided conversation guide for a session between members of the visiting congregation and the host congregation that will reflect how each congregation thinks about what it means to be the church in each of their own contexts. Questions will focus on the value of being community as congregation and congregational mission and outreach in each of the congregation’s contexts.
- Following the visit, the visiting congregation will share a testimony of what they experienced with their members (and send a written copy of the testimony to the host church, with a thank you for the hospitality received. And if they would share it with Outreach and Service Committee and conference staff, that would be OK too).
We think will be a fun, energizing, and relationship building way to begin to challenge our congregations to grow in their understanding of offering and receiving hospitality where God’s kingdom appears in our midst, particularly as we minister to the poor, the hungry, the prisoner and the stranger.
Planning Guide
Conversation Guide