I could not be more proud of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota! As you are hopefully aware, this last week we hosted the Episcopal Youth Event (EYE), the triennial gathering of over 1,100 young people from across The Episcopal Church.
All told, there were well over 100 Episcopalians from Minnesota involved at some level. We had folks who served on the hospitality team, we had a significant cadre who organized and facilitated the building of a Habitat House on site, and a large group of youth and their adult advisors who were participants. Every one of them embodied the spirit of hospitality.
Time after time people from across the Church would stop me and say, “Minnesota Episcopalians are great! They could not be more hospitable.” And maybe most poignant were the Presiding Bishop’s parting words when I dropped her off at the airport, “Every time I come here, I experience such gracious hospitality.”
The extension of God’s hospitality is really at the core of our expression of hospitality. Consistently in our sacred story we experience God as inviting, welcoming, and including. We are called to the same. Potentially one of the most powerful ways we engage God’s mission is by sharing God’s hospitality with others.
Starting with our convention in October with the theme of the Hospitality Of God, my hope is we will continue to explore and share amongst all our faith communities ways we can more fully engage God’s mission by expressing God’s hospitality…especially since we are famous for doing so!