Newcastle officer to explore the heart of hospitality
Newcastle officer to explore the heart of hospitality
1 September 2017
Newcastle Corps Officer Stephen Oliver will be heading to New Zealand later this month to present at the annual Thought Matters Conference.
A cup of tea and a chat, learning from those who are different from us, being the peace of God in the world – hospitality is both easier and harder than we think, according to Newcastle Corps Officer, Captain Stephen Oliver.
One of the presenters at this year’s Tri-Territorial Thought Matters Conference in New Zealand, Captain Oliver’s paper Beyond the Beatitudes: Hospitality as Peace-Making, explores the implications of Jesus’ teaching in the beatitudes on our understanding of what it means to embrace others.
“I have a personal conviction that we need to pay more attention to the Gospels, to what Jesus said and what he meant by what he said,” explains Captain Oliver.
“When Jesus says “blessed be the peace-makers” it’s more than the idea of getting a little bit of blessing for a little bit of conflict resolution.
“And when we talk about hospitality in our corps, we sometimes think that it is just about welcoming people, being nice and offering them coffee. It is about those things but it’s also about going significantly out of our way to embrace people of all kinds. And it’s about going into other people’s spaces and enjoying their hospitality.”
Exploring the idea of hospitality is not just academic for Captain Oliver, but one that is a real-life challenge in his own life and ministry.
“In Newcastle we share our building with the corps, Oasis Hunter Youth Network and Moneycare. We are actively exploring how we offer our services in an integrated way,” he says. “For us, it is about recognising that when people come into our building they don’t care which part of the organisation they are talking to – they could be talking to a corps officer or corps member, Oasis staff member or Moneycare staff member. The journey over the last couple of years has been how do we join that all up?
“It sounds like a simple thing but it hasn’t been simple. We’ve been realising that in order to offer hospitality to those that come in, we also need to offer hospitality to each other – we have been working on that by colouring outside the lines that could otherwise divide us – welcoming each other into each other’s spaces.
“Hospitality also carries into our outreach – after all, Jesus is the one who makes peace for us and with us, so being the people of God is about taking and being God’s shalom peace as we go into the world. What does it mean for us to be peacemakers? One example of that is that we are part of an inter-agency event in one of the local housing commission areas. Whilst the Oasis team are leading the charge on this, contributing their barbeque skills and youth engagement expertise, the connections and relationships that can be built over simple meals build the trust that ultimately creates the space for us to take other services into that community. We discover more opportunities for all our expressions when we serve together as guests in someone else’s space.”
Captain Oliver says another area he believes everyday Salvationists could begin a journey of hospitality as a means of peacemaking was to think about the issues of their local community.
“I think we can be more reflective about what it means for us to be involved in our local community and how that might impact the way we respond to wider political issues. It’s not just about being a voice for those who have no voice but actually helping those people to find and use their own voice.”
Captain Oliver believes such ventures are places of discomfort for many Christians, yet the New Testament meaning of hospitality invites us to show “love for strangers”.
“In my own experience I find that it is too easy to spend a lot of time surrounded by Christians, and I suspect that is true for many other Christians. It is hard to make simple connections with people that don’t share our values. But I think it’s where a shift can take place – when we intentionally make connections with people, whether they be in our workplaces or our neighbourhood, we can learn a lot from those relationships.
“But it is uncomfortable and I think one of the conversations I’d like to see provoked by my paper is ‘why is this uncomfortable for us?’
“The early days of The Salvation Army were anything but comfortable. But the gospel has always been about taking the values of the Kingdom beyond ourselves into the unfamiliar.
Captain Oliver said perhaps the most dangerous Christian response was to pray. “It’s easy to hide behind the idea of praying for others. If we pray those prayers we have to be ready to be the answer in our communities.”
Captain Oliver will join academics, practitioners, officers, and soldiers at the annual Thought Matters Conference from 29 September-1 October, at the Booth College of Mission, in Upper Hutt, New Zealand.
The conference, exploring the theme of Hospitality – Engaging the Other, will draw together representatives from the Australia Eastern, Australia Southern and New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga.
Read another story about a Thought Matters presenter HERE.
Register for the conference HERE.
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