You're Welcome Here—Week 5

Erin Davis: I’m headed to California today to be with Kesha and her church. I woke up to a little bit of a surprise . . . snow! Starting the day and snow and ending the day in California hopefully in the sun.

Kesha Griffin knows a lot about the power of hospitality. As a child her father came and went and did some jail time. Kesha felt a deep sense of hurt from his broken promises. But then, Kesah experienced the power of forgiveness.

Nancy (on air): We all need to be forgiven and we need to realize how much we need to forgive.

Erin: Kesha had been forgiven, so she sought to forgive her father.

Nancy (on air): The alternative to becoming bitter is to receive the grace God wants to give you to be released from that circumstance.

Erin: She invited her father to the church where her husband, Charles, is the pastor, and . . . she invited him into their home.

That’s not the only powerful story of hospitality that Kesha and her church have to tell. I’m headed to LA to learn more.

Song:

When your hurts are too much to bear,
I can’t make it disappear,
But I know how to weep with those who weep.

Kesha Griffin: What is the church community? What are we to do. The calling to biblical hospitality is who we are. It’s what we do.

Song:

Laugh a laugh and cry a tear.
Say "yes" to trust and "no" to fear.
Do you know you’re welcome here with me?
Do you know you’re welcome here?

Erin: As she became a pastor’s wife, hospitality didn’t come naturally.

Kesha: I struggled with being an isolationist, because I do have a background of childhood sexual abuse trauma. One of the ways I cope is to isolate.

My husband would invite a church family over, and I would kind of give him a hard time, because I just wanted to go home and be by myself. It caused somewhat of a division between us.

I was thinking, We went to church. We did the church thing. We stayed long. We fellowshipped after church. Now, this is my time! Let me go into my own comfort zone.

So it caused a bit of an issue, because I didn’t want to fellowship. I clearly remember driving, and being convicted by the Spirit, that I was just being selfish! I used the excuse that this was just how I dealt with my issues of abuse. I would clam up and isolate. I was used to being alone. 

But as a mature believer, I’m supposed to be able to fellowship, I remember being convicted, and I just wept as I was driving. I was alone in my car and thinking about things, and I was convicted and wept.

Erin: Kesha publicly repented. She and Charles and all of Dayspring Church worked to become a place where hospitality would be on display.

Kesha: My husband always tries to ensure that visitors feel welcome. He says, “Members, you guys know each other, you’re going to talk to each other; you don’t have time for that [right now]. Go and be intentional about making our visitors feel welcome!” So that’s just kind of the culture of our church to flock to the visitors.

Erin: I know it’s your normal, but unfortunately it’s not like capital “C” church normal.

Kesha: And that’s heartbreaking.

Erin: It is heartbreaking.

Cynthia Davis knows firsthand that sometimes that church fails to show hospitality. We’ll get into that in a minute, but first I want to give you some background on Cynthia.

Up until she was twenty-one years old, she experienced good health. But in her early twenties she started to have some issues with the muscles in her neck.

Cynthia: When I started to go to college, my head would push forward. When I would tip it all the way back . . .

Erin: Friends thought she was sticking her neck up out of pride.

Cynthia: I would get teased. Friend said, “Oh, she thinks she’s cute.”

Erin: But a neurologist diagnosed Cynthia’s problem. It was a rare disease called dystonia. It caused involuntary muscle movement—similar to cerebral palsy or Parkinson’s Disease. It turns out that Cynthia’s mom has dystonia, and so did Cynthia’s five siblings, including her sister Diana. And, the physical symptoms led to other difficulties.

Diana: I used to hide my hands behind my back.

Kesha: Because you felt insecure.

Diana: Yeah, insecure. I couldn’t express myself. That’s why I’m so quiet.

Erin: Diana’s son, Nicholas experienced good health until relatively recently when he started showing symptoms.

Nicholas: It affects my speech a lot. It also affects my muscles. Muscle spasms.

Kesha: Do the muscle spasms hurt, Nicholas.

Nicholas: It does hurt.

Kesha: Unfortunately, their own blood family disowned them because of their disability. So they were missing family.

Erin: And for context, they have a large extended family?

Kesha: A very large family—siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins.

Erin: And for the most part, that entire extended family has turned their backs on them because their needs are so great.

Kesha: Yes. Their needs are so great. They need caretakers for all of their physical needs.

Erin: The Davis family was experiencing all this without knowing Jesus. Cynthia wanted to know more about the Lord. She even visited several churches.

Cynthia: One church was a big church. I went there; no one greeted me, no one gave me a place to sit. I said, “What’s wrong with this church?!”

Erin: So, you were in a church and nobody was hospitable to you? You were on your walker and nobody accommodated that?

Cynthia: No one said, “Hello, how you doing?” Nobody said, “You can sit here,” you know.

Erin: That makes me really sad.

Cynthia: I said, “What’s wrong with this church? I want to leave!” I felt really hurt! I left and never went back.

Erin: While your story is poignant, unfortunately I hear from people, “I went to a church, no one spoke to me. Nobody offered to help me get my kids in the nursery.” Nobody said, “Sit with me.” That’s a very lonely feeling—especially when you think, These are Christians. If I were to find welcome anywhere, it should be here.

I love the church. I’m not pointing fingers. But it does have a profound impact when they don’t experience that.

Cynthia felt done with visiting churches, but a person invited her to visit Dayspring, and kept asking her for over a year.

Kesha: Can you imagine having a disability and not having true family? It’s just your small family of three, and coming into a church . . .

Erin: Especially when you had tried that before and experienced the same kind of rejection you’d experienced from your family. 

Kesha: Being overlooked, not being greeted. That’s a little scary and intimidating. So, thankfully, our church is warm and welcoming and friendly. 

Cynthia: People came up to me and hugged me and said, “Hello, welcome .”

Kesha: We just welcomed them as if they were part of our family already. 

Erin: A year later, Cynthia came to faith in Jesus. Cynthia brought Diana and Nicholas to Dayspring, and they came to know Christ as well.

Kesha’s momma, CeCe, became a caregiver for Cynthia, offering what I think is another form of hospitality.

CeCe: I tried to retire, but it didn’t happen! So I’m fine! [laughter]

Erin: I very much think of caregiving as ministry. Do you see caregiving as ministry?

CeCe: I never really looked at it as ministry; this is something that we’re called to do—to love, and that’s part of it.

Erin: We’re called to do it, but not everybody does it. In the new heaven and the new earth we won’t need caregivers because no one will be sick. But here, God’s people are to it. We are supposed to love one another. I think it is ministry.

These kinds of connections don’t happen on a Sunday morning service. I’m grateful for Sunday morning service and worshiping with the saints. But this happens as an outflow of hospitality. The, “You’re welcome in my home. You’re welcome in my heart. You’re welcome in my life. You’re welcome in the messy parts of my life. I’m going to be in the messy parts of your life because you need too.” So it is necessary.

Kesha: I see them growing not just closer to the Lord but also more confident that they are in the image of God still, even with their physical disabilities.

Erin: Do you know what the word for that is? “Dignity.” They have dignity.

Kesha: Yeah, that is the word!

Erin: And that comes from knowing, “I’m made in the image of God. I have value, no matter what happens to my hands, no matter what happens to my neck, if my speech continues to slur, I have dignity because God made me.”

Kesha: . . . because God made me. That has allowed them to open up their hearts and their home to others now. It’s funny. They have limitations so they can’t physically get up and serve, but they have grown to the point, and we’ve helped them understand that they still can be used by God where they are.

So, no, you can’t get up and physically help us or make a plate or serve us, but you can open up your home. That’s what you can do.

Erin: And so, the woman who had been so hurt by the church, came back. And the pastor’s wife who wanted time by herself, they now get together—almost every Sunday.

Cynthia: I don’t have any other family except my church family. That’s all I know. Because when I got sick, my biological family on my mother’s side were not there for us. It’s so painful.

I call Cece and Kesha and I call pastor and say, “I’m not feeling good. Pray for me.” I can call. I can’t call my family, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I call them—my sisters. I don’t have anybody except them. So without my church I would have no one.

Cece: That’s why God put you in our family.

Erin: Part of my story where I read those verses about my father forsakes me, You will take me in. Everyone has a version of that: my family, my biological family is not fully able to meet my needs. There’s something missing. There’s a reason why Scripture calls us the family of God. We become a new family!