The Holy Work of Hello

There are certain ministries in the church that people immediately recognize as important. Preaching. Worship. Children’s Ministry. Outreach. These are the ministries featured in videos with sweeping music playing underneath while people serve, sing, teach, and serve outside of the four walls of the church.

Then there are the people standing in a parking lot wearing a name tag and waving at cars, or at the doors saying good morning and shaking hands.

No sweeping music. No dramatic lighting. Just sunscreen, asphalt, and the occasional driver who seems personally offended that you’ve asked them to park between the lines.

It may not look particularly spiritual, but I believe that some of the holiest work happening on a Sunday morning begins long before anyone opens a Bible app or sings the first note of a worship song. It begins when someone pulls onto the church campus wondering if there will be a place for them.

It begins with a hello.

This is where I think the next companion in ties series brings clarity to the goodness of the ministry of hospitality brings to the world around us.

Teresa of Ávila was born in Spain in 1515, just two years before Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses helped ignite the Protestant Reformation. She lived during a century of exploration, religious conflict, political upheaval, and reform within both Protestant and Catholic communities. She entered the Carmelite religious life as a young woman and eventually became known as a contemplative, theologian, writer, mystic, and reformer.

Teresa believed deeply in prayer, but she wasn’t interested in a spirituality that remained safely tucked away inside someone’s private thoughts. Her contemplative life led her toward action. She helped establish reformed Carmelite communities centered on prayer, simplicity, community, and a renewed devotion to God. Her writings, including The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, continue to shape Christian understandings of prayer and spiritual formation. In 1970, Pope Paul VI named her a Doctor of the Church, making her the first woman to receive that designation.

Her legacy was formed through the intersection of three realities. She was a woman living within institutions that didn’t easily recognize the authority of women. She was a contemplative who believed that communion with God transformed the soul. And she was a reformer willing to challenge patterns that had become comfortable but no longer helped people faithfully follow Christ.

She didn’t simply retreat from the problems around her and call it prayer. Her prayer gave her the courage to enter those problems with he whole self

To be fully transparent, there are also parts of Teresa’s spiritual practice that I struggle with. She participated in severe forms of bodily mortification, practices intended to discipline or deny the body, which were common in some religious traditions of her time. Her passion on this front led to periods of serious illness, and I don’t believe harming the body is the path to holiness.

Our bodies aren’t obstacles we must punish into submission. They are part of the good creation God has given us and the means through which we love, serve, worship, embrace, feed, carry, listen, and welcome.

Still, Teresa’s insistence that prayer must become embodied faith speaks deeply to me. True communion with Christ doesn’t make us less present to the world. It makes us more present. Prayer opens our eyes to the people around us and then asks what we’re going to do now that we’ve seen them.

A prayer widely attributed to Teresa expresses this beautifully:

Christ has no body but yours,
no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands.
Yours are the feet.
Yours are the eyes.
You are his body.

This prayer’s emphasis on embodied discipleship reflects the shape of her life and teaching.

We are the body of Christ.

That truth is theological, but it is also extremely practical. Christ’s body holds doors. It learns names. It notices the person standing alone. It moves a chair so someone using a walker has room. It walks across the room when it would be easier to remain with familiar friends. It brings food, sends the text, makes eye contact, listens without checking the time, and says, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Teresa’s vision of embodied faith resonates with me especially because I lead the First Impressions Team at our church.

I’m under no illusion about how First Impressions ministries are sometimes viewed. Greeting is often considered one of the easiest places to begin serving, which can subtly turn into the assumption that it isn’t especially important. After all, how complicated can it be to smile, shake a hand, or point toward the bathrooms?

Because the work looks simple, it can also feel optional. If someone doesn’t show up, surely another person can cover it. If a parking position is empty or a door isn’t opened, people will probably figure it out.

And they probably will.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

I don’t believe First Impressions is simply a warm-up ministry that happens while everyone waits for the real ministry to begin. I believe it is some of the most important work we do because, for many people, it begins in the parking lot.

If you are an introvert, you understood that last sentence almost immediately.

Pulling into the parking lot of an unfamiliar church can cause your blood pressure to rise before you’ve even found a space. You’re scanning for signs while trying not to drive the wrong way down a one-way lane. You’re wondering which entrance you’re supposed to use, whether someone will talk to you, whether too many people will talk to you, and whether you can somehow slip inside without anyone noticing that you have no idea where you’re going.

The walk from the car to the building can feel like its own little gauntlet. Every step gives anxiety another opportunity to whisper that you don’t belong, that everyone else knows what they’re doing, and that turning around would be much easier than walking through those doors.

Then someone looks up and smiles.

Someone waves you toward an open parking space. The parking lot tram pulls up and the driver offers a warm invitation for a ride to the front.  Someone holds the door and says good morning without making you feel as though you’re being interviewed. Someone notices your children and shows you where to check them in. Someone sees uncertainty on your face and offers help before you have to admit that you’re lost.

A hello may last only a few seconds, but those few seconds can soften the entire walk inside.

We tell our First Impressions Team that our mission is to help every person who comes onto our campus feel welcomed and seen from street to seat. That means the sermon begins in the parking lot. Hospitality isn’t separate from worship or something we do before worship starts. Hospitality helps prepare a person to enter worship.

Before someone hears that God sees them, a person may need to experience being seen by one of us.
Before someone hears that there is room for them in the family of God, they may need someone to make room beside them.
Before someone believes they can bring their fears, questions, grief, doubt, or complicated history into the presence of Jesus, they may need to discover that they can bring those things through the doors of a church without being treated like a problem to solve.

This is why the work matters.

Teresa’s contemplative life reminds us that prayer isn’t meant to end with a private spiritual experience. Prayer forms us into people who increasingly see what Jesus sees and love what Jesus loves. It reshapes our attention. It teaches our eyes to linger where they once passed quickly and our feet to move toward people we might otherwise avoid.

Jesus describes this kind of embodied faith in Matthew 25:35–40.

‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’   “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you?’ “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus connects love for him with the practical care of people. There’s no separation between spiritual devotion and embodied compassion. Food offered to someone who is hungry becomes an offering to Christ. A visit to someone who is isolated becomes time spent with Christ. Welcoming the stranger becomes welcoming Christ himself.

That doesn’t mean every interaction must become a dramatic spiritual moment. Sometimes I think we miss the sacredness of ordinary service because we’re waiting for something that feels more impressive. We imagine that embodied faith must involve a life-altering mission trip, a heroic sacrifice, or a testimony with background music swelling at exactly the right moment.

Sometimes it does.

More often, it looks like noticing someone standing alone.

It looks like walking a family to the children’s area instead of vaguely pointing down a hallway and hoping they figure it out. It looks like bringing a meal in a container you don’t need returned. It looks like saving a seat, learning a name, moving over, sending the text, or lingering long enough to hear the honest answer after asking, “How are you?”

Paul gives this kind of love an everyday shape in Romans 12:9–13.

Let love be without hypocrisy.  Detest evil; cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters.  Take the lead in honoring one another.  Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit; serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.  Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality. 

I love that Paul says we’re to pursue hospitality. Hospitality isn’t presented as a personality trait reserved for people with naturally bubbly dispositions, Pinterest-worthy tables, or an unreasonable number of throw pillows. It’s something all of us are called to practice.

Some of us will practice it loudly, greeting people across the room with the enthusiasm of a game-show host. Others will practice it quietly by noticing the person who seems overwhelmed and offering a gentle, low-pressure welcome. Hospitality doesn’t require us to become someone else. It asks us to offer who we are in a way that makes room for another person.

Hospitality invites us to live with holy curiosity. We don’t always know who is standing in front of us, what they carried into the room, or what courage it took for them to arrive. We don’t know whether they prayed in the parking lot before walking inside or whether they almost turned around twice on the drive over. We don’t know whether they’re looking for a church, looking for hope, looking for answers, or simply looking for one safe place to sit for an hour.

We don’t have to know their entire story before offering kindness.

We only have to notice that they’re here.

The prayer of Teresa says that ours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion upon the world. That means the first question of embodied faith may not be, “What should I do?” It may be, “Am I paying attention?”

Compassion begins with seeing.

Jesus repeatedly noticed people others overlooked. He saw the hungry crowd before his disciples recognized the need. He saw people not as interruptions to his ministry, but as the very people his ministry was for.

That kind of attention is holy work.

A hello is not just a hello when it tells someone, “You aren’t invisible here.”
A meal is not just a meal when it tells a grieving family, “You don’t have to carry everything today.”
A chair is not just a chair when moving it creates space for someone whose body has different needs.
A sign is not just a sign when it helps an anxious guest find their way without having to ask.
A text is not just a text when it reaches someone who has begun to wonder whether anyone would notice their absence.
A table is not just a table when the invitation to sit down communicates that there is room for one more.

These actions don’t earn us favor with God. They’re the fruit of having already received his welcome. We offer hospitality because Christ first welcomed us when we were strangers, outsiders, wanderers, and people who had absolutely no idea where we were going.

Which, now that I think about it, is a fairly accurate description of most of us arriving at church, every week, in one way or another.

Most of us won’t reform a religious order or write a work of theology that is still being read five centuries later. We may never experience the kind of contemplative visions associated with Teresa’s life. But we’re all given ordinary places where our faith can become visible.

We have homes, workplaces, churches, neighborhoods, grocery store lines, waiting rooms, group chats, sidewalks, and dinner tables. We have eyes that can notice, feet that can move toward someone, hands that can serve, and voices that can speak words of welcome.

The holy work in front of us may be smaller than we expected. That doesn’t make it less holy.

We can become so focused on finding our calling that we miss the person standing directly in front of us. We ask God to show us how he wants to use our lives while stepping around the opportunity to love someone in the hallway. We imagine that purpose must be large, public, and unmistakably important, when sometimes obedience looks like arriving on time for the parking position we agreed to fill.

Sometimes faithfulness wears a name tag.
Sometimes it holds a door.
Sometimes it knows where the bathrooms are. 

The contemplative life teaches us to become present to God. Embodied faith teaches us that becoming present to God should also make us more present to one another. Prayer doesn’t remove us from the needs of the world. It gives us the courage, patience, and compassion to enter them.

Teresa’s life reminds us that devotion and action aren’t competing ways of following Jesus. Contemplation roots us in the love of God, and service allows that love to move outward through our actual bodies in actual places toward actual people.

Our hands may not heal every wound, but they can carry a meal.
Our feet may not travel across the world, but they can cross the room.
Our eyes may not see every need, but they can learn to notice the person in front of us.
Our words may not change everything, but they can say, “Hello. I’m glad you’re here.”

We rarely know the full weight another person is carrying when they walk toward us. We may never know what our kindness interrupted, what fear it quieted, or what door it helped them find the courage to walk through.

But Christ has chosen to make his love visible through his people.

Through our eyes.
Through our feet.
Through our hands.

And sometimes, through the holy work of a hello.

You might also like other posts from this series:
Intro: Beauty in the Bruise
Part 1: When Restlessness is Really Homesickness
Part 2: All Shall Be Well: Even Here
Part 3: Shaken But Not Overcome
Part 4: Prayers From the Edge of Goodbye
Part 5: The Greening Grace of God
Part 6: God In the Reheated Coffee
Part 7: The Holy Work of Hello

Photo by Vladislav Klapin on Unsplash