Sometimes you find a welcome mat in the oddest places. It happened to me about 25 years ago in the wide-open prairie land of Montana.

My wife and I led a team of teenagers who were returning from a mission trip to a native tribe in western Canada. At 2 a.m. the tire on our 15-passenger rental van blew out, and the spare didn't fit the wheel. So there we were, along with howling coyotes, stranded about 50 miles from the nearest town. What would we do?

Before long an eastbound trucker stopped and offered me and my flat tire a ride to the next city. He then radioed for a westbound trucker to pick me up after the tire was repaired and take me back to our group.

These two guys who identified themselves only by their CB handles asked for no compensation, but of course I thanked "B.O. Plenty" and "Bean Picker" for their hospitality.

Hospitality? Yes. Even though they never invited me into their homes, they still put out a welcome mat to a stranger in need. That's what hospitality is all about.

In modern times the idea of hospitality has been watered down to mean using the nice china and putting mints on pillowcases for guests. However, when the Apostle Paul enjoined believers to "practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13) he wasn't recommending something so comfy and cozy.

In those days hospitality (see the word "hospital" in it?) was a potentially lifesaving form of service. It had to do with quenching people's thirst with your own cup of water, alleviating their hunger with your last piece of bread, sheltering strangers under your roof without assurance of personal safety, or aiding a stranded traveler.

True hospitality means making sure there is always a welcome mat at the threshold of your life — inviting anyone-no-matter-who under the covering of your compassion.

This is why it takes practice.

A Welcome Mat at the Door to Your Ears
We live in the era of the "demand for free speech" and also an era of moral irresponsibility. That's a dangerous combination. It spawns Jerry Springer-like shouting matches on alleged news programs that have turned conversation into a full-contact sport. You see it every night on networks such as Fox, MSNBC, CNN and the like, where people have one desire: to be heard.

Once upon a time everyone understood that you forfeit the right to be heard when you neglect the responsibility to listen. Those days are gone.

As troubling as our current state of affairs may be, the darkness of the moment gives true Christians a great opportunity to shine. By simply becoming people who make the counter-cultural decision to become slow-to-speak, passionate listeners, we are placing a welcome mat for people weary of traveling through the land of shouts and jeers.

That's hospitality.

A Welcome Mat at the Door to Your Possessions
In some ways the classic Christian discipline of taking a vow of poverty is an easy way out in dealing with the power our possessions can have over our hearts. If you don't have something, you never have to deal with the heart's strong compulsion to keep it for yourself.

Once something actually belongs to you, the trick is letting it go from your hands to someone else's. Hospitality is the rigorous practice of prying your steely grip away from what belongs to you, one finger at a time. True hospitality takes the sentiment mi casa es su casa and applies it to our cars, our food, our money and our clothes — even if it means the shirt off our back.

A Welcome Mat at the Door to Your Agenda
Our culture does a fine job of encouraging us to find what will fulfill us and "go for it" or "just do it" as Nike ads say. Our penchant to determine and pursue what's important to us is reinforced almost daily. "Have it your way," says not only Burger King but every food court, grocery store and frozen dinner.

Christian hospitality is a matter of placing a welcome mat out to allow what matters to others to matter to us as well. It's going for a long walk with someone, even when you don't feel like walking. It's leading a youth group at church even when your own kids and your consequent vested interest in "that age group" are long gone. It's spending time with someone who offers absolutely nothing to further your personal goals or interests.

A Welcome Mat at the Door to Your Time
In a culture such as ours where every second counts and our daily activities are born aloft on the wings of Palm Pilots, hospitality requires radical openness to interruption. Has a knock on the door or the ring of a phone ever come at a good time? Caller ID is a great invention for those who genuinely want to learn hospitality. Unfortunately most people use it to screen their calls and control whom they are willing or not willing to talk to.

But those who want to practice hospitality can use Caller ID to create the consciousness of that split second — a split second of decision that hospitality is all about — when you know you're going to have to give up some of your time.

Hospitality is practiced at that very moment by responding "yes" in the face of the competing desire to say "no" and keep your time, your agenda, your resources or your ears to yourself.

Our confidence is — and this is what inspires our feature section on "hospitality" — that every time you say "yes" your door swings open not only to another person, but also to the character-shaping work of the Holy Spirit.