ROMANS 12:13

Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

TO PONDER

Let me summaries a story I heard on a leadership podcast recently. A restaurateur in New York, Daniel Humm, owner and Head Chef of Eleven Madison Park, explained that he realised that all the fine food, top notch silver service, and restaurant ambience in the world was not going to set his restaurant apart from all the other world class restaurants doing exactly the same thing. He decided that generous hospitality was going to be the distinctive element of his restaurant.

On the podcast he shared stories of listening to the conversations happening at tables in his restaurants and learning the needs of his customers and doing whatever he could to meet those needs. Things like sending wait staff from the restaurant to feed a diners parking metre so they did not have to rush out at the end of the meal. One time he heard a group of people who had been on a food tour of the USA and finished their trip with a meal in his restaurant, lamenting that they probably did not have time to find a NYC street vendor hot dog before heading to the airport. To make sure his guests did not leave with any regrets he took himself to a hot dog vendor he knew a couple of blocks away, had his chefs 'tizzy' them up a bit on a fancy plate and presented them with a complementary New York hotdog before leaving. All of this in what is supposed to be one of New Yorks best fine dining restaurants. Anyway, his outrageous hospitality has made his restaurant one of the top 10 in the world.

I'm not sure hospitality always comes naturally. Certainly not that kind of generous hospitality. Perhaps that's why Paul tells the Romans, and us, to practice it.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you always listened and heard people and saw their need. You also always found just the right way to meet their needs. Help me to be generous in showing hospitality to others. Help me to soo those who are in need and to recognise what abilities you have given me to meet those needs in your name. Amen

Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle