Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition
A book review by Eric Wallace

This book provides a compelling vision for a return to the proven, but forgotten practice of Biblical Hospitality. Hospitality is crucial to Household Ministry because it coordinates individual households with the broader church community to minister a living, life-changing gospel to our communities. Hospitality is the conduit for reaching out into our communities.

From the start, the author defines hospitality as it is presented in the Scripture: bringing strangers and needy people into our homes. This is far from how we interpret its meaning today. Today, we settle for a much more comfortable, but less significant version: entertainment of friends. While this is a good place to start, by itself it misses the mark of Biblical hospitality…and ministry that will make a significant difference in our lives and the lives of people who most need our help.

The author soundly addresses the obvious concerns such as safety that come with inviting people into our homes that we don’t know well or at all. She reminds us that even the simplest efforts can make a huge difference and should be celebrated. So, one does not have to be a “Super Christian” or have a Masters Degree in Counseling in order to get started in hospitality.

This is an inspiring shot in the arm for anyone who really wants to minister to the people around them in a significant, meaningful way through households. The book offers copious scripture references and the writings of our Early Church and Reformation fathers such as Chrysostom, Calvin, Luther, and Wesley; all who saw hospitality as a non-negotiable Christian duty and mark of the true Church.

When I read a book, I quite literally ran out of highlighter ink there were so many exciting and challenging insights. This is a very strategic book for church leaders to study (Study Guide also available) because it posits a clear foundation for biblical hospitality that is central to the household ministry approach because it is the primary way ministry is accomplished through households.

Perhaps the best book on this topic, it gives a deep, clear, biblically and historically accurate treatment of hospitality that until now I have never seen.