Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition (Paperback)

~ (Author) "WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MINISTRY AS OFFERING hospitality to strangers?..." (more)
Key Phrases: substantial hospitality, recovering hospitality, vulnerable strangers, New York, Grand Rapids, Catholic Worker (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Although hospitality was central to Christian identity and practice in earlier centuries, our generation knows little about its life-giving character. MAKING ROOM revisits the Christian foundations of welcoming strangers and explores the necessity, difficulty, and blessing of hospitality today. Christine Pohl traces the eclipse of this significant Christian practice, showing the initial centrality of hospitality and the importance of recovering it for contemporary life. Combining rich biblical and historical research with extensive exposure to modern service communities--The Catholic Worker, L'Abri, L'Arche, and others--this book shows how understanding the key features of hospitality can better equip us to faithfully carry out the practical call of the gospel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 205 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (August 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802844316
• ISBN-13: 978-0802844316
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #136,514 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making Room - an action agenda for the faith community, February 4, 2002

By	David Weinschrott (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews

It is hard to know where to start. The book is elegantly written, it is full of interesting history of the early church. But more importantly, it speaks to a deadness in the church today. Often members of the church have learned to live distant from problems of their "neighbors" be they down the block or down the street in the challenged neighborhoods in our cities.

In the early church, members were the challenged people, they reached out to each other, but now much of the church is isolated and distant from the needy stranger. Read Luke 14 - decide if you have responded to principles in those scenarios described by Jesus. If you come up short, then this book will help with a compassionate analysis of our dilemma in reaching out to "the least of these."

In addition to setting the stage for individuals to learn to reach out to needy strangers, the book creates a context for the faith-based social service discussion. While members of congregations may not exhibit the skills of professional social workers, they have an important role to play in being present and responding to neigbors in their communities who need the touch of grace in their lives.

The book is a good read, but it requires more than one pass. If you invest in the book deeply, you will be called to action.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God and angels, May 30, 2000

By	Nicola Creegan (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

Making Room is a narrative of the Christian story of hospitality, and is rich in historical and Biblical detail. Pohl convinces us that in recovering this lost Christian practice we will not only encounter the holiness and mystery of God, but entertain angels as well.

Making Room is a positive and a healing book. All is not right with Christendom, but throughout church history there have been a few persons who have recovered and continued the practice of entertaining strangers, and have promoted or formed redemptive welcoming communities. Making Room is thus a book that brings to life the holy underside of history. Included in the narrative are the stories of some contemporary communities of hospitality still functioning on the edges of church life today, bringing hospitality to workers, the condemned, the handicapped, or those seeking spiritual direction.

In spite of the persistent theme of encountering angels, however, Pohl does not gloss over the human toll involved in providing hospitality, and the enormous burden it often places on a few. She discusses openly the painful question of boundaries and limits in the practice of hospitality, and the need to maintain identity as well as openness to others.

Pohl's writing is remarkable in its ecumenical application. All traditions and communities are incorporated at some point in the history and in the contemporary application. This text will be invaluable for seminary students, pastors and priests, lay church groups, and anyone interested in social issues, spirituality or church history. Making Room will provide answers to those perplexed by the lack of depth in contemporary church life today, and those who are thinking through issues of boundaries and openness with regard to refugees and aliens in many contexts.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An old road for a new generation: Hospitality Reconsidered, September 6, 2005

By	Margaret M. Hanrahan (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this day of declining membership in mainline Christian churches and the exponetially rising number of refugees and migrants worldwide, Christine Pohl makes a convincing case for the primacy of hospitality as a spiritual discipline for 21st century Christians. Fear and institutional distance has radically altered the practice of hospitality, making what was once common behavior, a radical devotion among only the bravest of souls. Simple hospitality will be the hallmark of sanctity in the modern world. Every minister should have this work in their pastoral library. It is a book to ponder and pray over.