“Hey, why don’t you come to my house for Shabbat tonight?”
I got this question multiple times back in 1997 when I was single and living in Jerusalem.
I used to go out and strike up conversations with Jewish people at the Western Wall and when I did this on Friday afternoons, I’d get these surprising, spontaneous invitations.
Fast forward to last week at our family meeting. We discussed what it looks like to do outreach as a family team. These invitations from over 20 years ago came to mind.
So we decided to run a little experiment.
We decided that all of us would pray and consider who God is calling us to invite to Shabbat dinner this Friday night, and after the meal I would share the Gospel.
We have 12-15 people from our family at most of our Shabbats, and we added 6 more non-family members this Shabbat. We were able to share the Gospel in a really natural way at the table after the meal.
Conversations went late into the night.
We’re trying to learn what it means to share the Gospel through the home and through an experience of hospitality.
But I don’t think I would have even considered extending these invitations if it wasn’t for those times, before I had a family of my own, when I was repeatedly invited into a family home to share a Shabbat meal.
Jeremy
P.S. We want to invite you to come to Israel with our family! Check out all the details here. We are going to spend a whole week learning forgotten family lessons preserved and practiced by the Jewish people, including the experience of having Shabbat in the home of an Orthodox Jewish family. These experiences are not only life-changing, they change families for generations.
This entry is a part of Jeremy’s Journal, a newsletter Jeremy sends out every Wednesday morning to encourage you on your parenting journey. You can sign up to get them every Wednesday here.
