Day 14, Radical Hospitality

When I originally started working on the Five Practices with our church there were a tons of ideas that came to my mind.  I looked around at our church and remembered my own first Sunday there and the trouble we had finding the children's area (no one seemed to know).  Since our church is larger than most, we have different problems because the building is more spread out, different groups meet all over the place and you are less likely to know everyone.  In his book, Bishop Schnase defines Christian Hospitality as "the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ".  This gives us a good idea of the direction he is going.  Radical Hospitality is more than just having coffee and donuts for visitors but having an attitude whenever we think about our church, we are focused on how to make visitors feel more welcome and safe.  Jesus says, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35).  "Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40).  When looking at Radical Hospitality, we need to remember that we were all visitors once and our goal is to make EVERYONE feel more than welcome in our church.

When you take Radical Hospitality into a youth group, it almost changes the way you think because most of the time you can't control the way the building looks, signage, or where your youth room is.  Since you don't have as much control, you really need to be creative in how you practice Radical Hospitality.  Let me also point out, Radical Hospitality isn't just how people see you when they walk into the door of your church, but also how they see you in the community.  As a youth group, do you market yourself?  Do you have t-shirts that you students wear?  Buttons, fliers or other marketing material?  Do you have a good logo for your group?  What about a website or Facebook?  

Marketing is something that churches don't seem to always embrace.  Churches think it is for business' only but we must remember that todays generation, especially teenagers, will do their research before they get to your group whether it be hitting your website for more information or looking at who is on your Facebook group.  When I was interviewing for the job here at Platte Woods, I immediately went to their website and tried to find information, pictures of staff and ministry information before I came to interview.  I can tell you, our website needs a lot of help because finding information was difficult.

When I first started at Platte Woods, even before we started talking about the 5 Practices, one of the first changes I made was to move the youth ministry from having 3 separate rooms (Jr High, Sr High and a game room) in two different parts of the building to having a single meeting place (or wing) for our group.  We have our own entrance so students aren't wandering around looking for where the youth group meets.  I know that not everyone can do this but we need to think BIG first, then the little things are easier to accomplish.  You can also start looking around at small things you can do to make your youth group meeting place more inviting to students.  As we talk, we are going to have hundreds of scenario's because each of our churches are different but I will try to make any suggestion generic enough to be adaptable to everyone.

Radical Hospitality is more than marketing and building looks but also about how students are accepted when they come to your church.  Is your group inviting their friends?  Do new students know where to go and what to do?  Are you students social enough to talk with visitors they don't know?  Are your adults willing to talk to new students or do they huddle together?  I have found, for us, that this was a problem, not because my kids weren't friendly but because they weren't used to looking for new people.

All that said, how can we practice Radical Hospitality in our youth groups?

1. Get your adults/church staff/student leaders on board.  Radical Hospitality takes a whole youth group.  Talk to your leaders and brainstorm the best way to practice radical hospitality.  Make sure you have the help you need.  You can't do this alone.  Radical Hospitality is an attitude change that must occur in every member of your youth group, from the adult leaders to the youngest student.  This may include changing some job descriptions (or writing some), asking adult leaders and students to be specific about looking for newcomers to your group.  This may take some training sessions, use your teaching time to talk about hospitality and getting out of your comfort zone and educating everyone involved.  Once you get everyone together, lay out a plan for what Radical Hospitality will look like.  Use "secret shoppers" to give your feedback on how your group is doing.
2. Market Yourself Online & Offline.  In youth ministry, we compete with a world that spends billions of dollars to make itself look good to teenagers, but with a little creativity we can do our best to capture the attention of our students.  When you send out postcards or letters to perspective students, make sure they are well thought out and visually appealing.  If you aren't a creative person (like I am not) then find a parent, student or church member that is and let them help you.  There are many free tools out there to help you do this.  Programs like Paint.net, Gimp and Scribus replace tools like Adobe Photoshop and Publisher.  Besides print materials, get online and work every angle.  Websites, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are all tools that students will use to find out more about a group.  Again, if you aren't good at using these tools, find someone who is.  Students are great at being online, so utilize them the best you can.  There are many free website templates and hosting companies out there that can help you have a visually appealing website that students will want to come back to.  MAKE SURE YOU KEEP IT UP TO DATE.  This is my biggest pet peave, to go to a site with information on it that is days, weeks or months old.
3. Make your youth room as inviting as possible.  This can have the most impact of all.  Youth Rooms are notorious for being some hole in the wall room that no one else wanted.  Sometimes they have outdated equipment, couches and ugly paint on the wall.  When designing the youth area for Radical Hospitality, start by making sure that students can get there.  If you need to post signs or change some verbiage, then do it.  Students can't join your group if they can't find the room.  Make sure also that your meeting times are posted in all the right places around the church or in your bulletins.  Once students get to your room, make sure it doesn't smell and has decent furniture.  Paint is relatively cheap, so paint the room (if possible) in a way that draws students in.  You would be amazed at how much a coat of paint can change the attitude of a room.  Put some posters on the wall of Christian bands or upcoming events.  Ditch the old couches...  I know this seems cool to some but it isn't.  Having a 15 year old hand me down couch isn't cool, its cheap.  If you can, buy some decent couches or have someone in the church make couch covers or visit garage sales and look for GOOD used couches in a single color.  Make sure to have publications in your area that promote your group.  Information about upcoming events, different ministry teams and registration forms can be used to draw students into conversation.
4. Create a Hospitality team.  We are still in the process of putting this together, so I am going to give you my dream idea.  When students enter the door they are greeted by an adult or student leader that welcomes them and takes their information for follow-up use.  We give away lanyards with the youth group name on them to each visitor, so they have a reminder of their visit.  Once that student have been signed in, they are handed off to a student leader who then takes the student around and introduces them to other students, the student leader stays with the new person for the remainder of the night and helps them through the service.  While the student leader is with the newcomer, they are trying to find out as much information as possible in order to help connect that student to the youth group.  Our follow-up would be 3-fold.  First, would be a phone call/email/postcard from the youth pastor.  Second would be a phone call/email/postcard from someone on the hospitality team, preferably a person who met the student.  Third, a student at the school of the new student would try to track them down and thank them for coming to their group.  This might not be possible for every school but you probably will cover most.  Each of these contacts will let the students know they have connections for the next time they visit your youth group.  Our hospitality team is also responsible for remembering birthdays and special occasions.  There is great benefit in having student on student contact.  Students are more able to talk with one another and share their joys/excitement for the youth group and what is going on.

These are just a few ideas of ways that you can use to build Radical Hospitality.  Each church is different and will need to adjust them for your own situation.  We must do everything we can to build welcoming youth groups.  And this goes beyond newcomers.  We must continually work to make our group welcoming to everyone who steps through the doors, whether they are brand new or have been in your group for years.  Work with your senior pastor and staff to see what changes the church is making and maybe get them to adjust, if it helps the youth group also.

Our group took on the task of painting the original church sanctuary because that was where we worshiped.  We worked with the staff on coloring and how it could be done since we shared that room with many other groups.  When we redid the student area, we renovated that area to work for all groups that might use it but still had our own little touch on it.  Remember to be creative.  Talk with your students about what will attract their friends.  They are your best resource for ideas.

What ways does your group exhibit radical hospitality?  What areas can you improve on to make students feel welcomed?