What A Trip To The ER Can Teach Us

   Our Bishop, Mike Coyner, was on vacation out of state when his wife Marsha grew ill and had to be taken to the emergency room.  Her illness required some kind of surgical procedure, but not one that kept her at the hospital over night.  Bishop Coyner, in one of his recent posts, made the following observations about what the church can learn from his experience about hospitality.


As I reflected on that experience in the "strange" hospital in the "strange" city, I wondered how many congregations would measure up to their standard. Let me list a few of the ingredients of the hospitality of that hospital to allow you to compare to your congregation:

1. Excellent signage so I could find the ER entrance even in the dark of night
2. Free and plentiful parking
3. A person greeting us as soon as we entered - who took us to the right place to start the admission process (she did not just point and tell us where to go)
4. An admissions person who was an RN and really knew how to ask the appropriate questions to determine the level of medical care needed
5. Prompt attention from a nurse and then a physician (we waited less than 10 minutes)
6. Many expressions of care, asking about Marsha's level of pain, offering words of comfort, and many comments about "I am so sorry that has happened during your vacation."
7. No one - NOT ONE PERSON - looked or acted strangely toward us since we were from another state and not "local" persons. Everyone treated us with respect and courtesy.
8. The volunteer staff in the surgical waiting room gave me a pager (like you get in some restaurants when you wait to be seated) that would locate me anywhere in the hospital when they needed to alert me how Marsha was doing. Those same volunteer staff took the time to show me to the next location where I needed to wait for Marsha in recovery. Just like the greeter listed in #3 above, they did not point and tell me where to go, they took me since I was obviously new and did not know my way around
9. The doctor gave me his business card and wrote his cell phone number on the back, saying, "I know you are new to this area, so if anything goes wrong or if you have any further concerns or questions, just call me - even if it is 2 a.m."
10. The volunteer who wheeled Marsha out to my car took the time to offer suggestions for places we could visit during the remainder of our vacation, since our plans for bike-riding were changed by her medical situation.

I could name others, but you get the point. Hospitality means caring enough to put oneself into another "shoes" and to try to provide for their needs even before being asked. Hospitality is really about the Golden Rule of Jesus: doing for others what we would want done for us.

   Hospitality is something we do naturally in our homes or in our businesses.  It is more than being just polite or well mannered.  It is one of the most forward leaning habits of Christian kindness.  And it is something we have to always work on when we attend worship or other events at our church.  Jesus is the host, ultimately, but in the meantime since St. Andrew is OUR church we are the stand-ins for our Master.  Even though I hope that we will move beyond "making room for those God sends to us" to seeking out our prodigal brothers and sisters and bringing them back home to God--we can never lose sight of the life-changing experience of radical hospitality.  May we never forget to put ourselves in the shoes of those who make the leap to try some aspect of our congregational life--doing for others what Jesus so extravagantly did and does for us.