NOTE: After some prompting from the Holy Spirit and a person most special in my life, I have decided to resume blogging.

Hospital Stay

Recently I had a brief stay in the hospital! I went to my doctor for my regular bi-annual physical and my doctor said my heart rate was elevated. I told him it was the drive from Grand Prairie to Dallas, and he said, “That can happen.” But he checked my heart rate again and said, “I don’t think this is traffic related.” So he had them perform an EKG on me, and he came back in and said I was in A-Fib and CareFlight was in route to take me to the ER. Well, my wife works in a building just steps away from my doctor’s office, and she texted at that moment and asked if I was finished, since we always go to lunch together when I have a doctor’s appointment. I told her they were taking me to the ER and of course she was there in a matter of minutes. It was decided that my wife could just drive me to the ER. Well, after administering four rounds of IV drugs, they got my heart rate down, but they kept me over night just to make sure. The hospital staff were all very friendly, attentive, and willing to make you feel good emotionally even if you are feeling bad physically. They even sent me a card to my home after leaving Wishing me Well! That was good medicine!

Hospitality

But here’s the point! I started thinking and decided to check the root of the word hospital, and discovered the Latin root for hospital is the same as host, hospice, hostel, hotel, and hospitality! Well, then I started thinking about how a hospital is a place for the physically hurting and the church is a place for the spiritually hurting, and part of the church’s “medicine”  must be hospitality. Then the Lord led me to Romans 12:13, which says, …rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. That’s when it occurred to me, that if we want our church to be a hospital for the spiritually sick, we have to begin by being the most hospitable church in Grand Prairie! So we are going to make this a church goal and it will start with the pastor, the staff, and church leaders and prayerfully trickle down to our whole church family.

When guests leave our service I want them saying,  “Man, that is the most hospitable bunch of people I have ever met!“ Pray it so!