Making Room, 25th anniversary edition: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition

by Christine D. Pohl

Hospitality is crucial to Christian ministry. 
 
To the early Christians, hospitality was central to the gospel mission. This hospitality did not consist of entertaining neighbors, but welcoming the stranger, especially those who could not return the favor. Yet despite urgent need, hospitality has fallen by the wayside. 
 
Christine Pohl’s classic work,  Making Room , first spoke to this issue in 1999. And it is just as relevant today, with the refugee crisis, the rise in homelessness, and growing loneliness and isolation. This revitalized edition, with a new foreword and afterword by the author, introduces the theology of hospitality to a new generation. Pohl combines rich biblical and historical research with experience in contemporary Christian communities, including the Catholic Worker, L’Abri, Good Works, Inc., and others.  
 
Pragmatic and thoughtful, Pohl deals frankly with both the blessings and the boundaries of hospitality. Readers will find a wealth of wisdom to revive authentic hospitality in their ministry.

237 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 1999

About the author

Christine D. Pohl is Associate Provost and Professor of Church and Society/Christian Ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, where she has taught since 1989. She received a B.S. in Special Education at Syracuse University, 1972; a M.A. in Theological Studies, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 1986; and a Ph.D. in Ethics and Society at Emory University, 1993. She is best known as the author of Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition.

Reviews

[Zachary Huckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional book, and one everyone should read I think.
Every thing is excellent, although it does have the normal Catholic misinterpretation of Luther, but apart from that, perfect.

[Faith Nevenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more important and timely books I’ve ever read.

[Leilani · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has a good historical foundation and leaves you convicted. However, it is very repetitive and turns very dry.

[Timothy Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pohl provides an interesting historical overview of hospitality and sheds light on what has changed in our modern world. The points made, however, are highly repetitive and did not move from observation to analysis to application.

[Matthew McBirth · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a good book. Christine Pohl explains how hospitality used to be a central practice in the church, but how many Christians stopped doing it with the rise of the hospitality industry. She addresses ways to recapture hospitality in modern times, with the afterword of the 25th anniversary edition directly addressing a post-2020 world. I found at times Pohl re-circling the same points, but normally, it paid off to highlight another facet of Christian hospitality. Here's a good line: "Often, the practice of hospitality is a window into some of the mystery - a mystery that is as mundane as soup and as transcendent as angels."

[Bekah Behnke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hospitality is one of the most tangible ways we can show people the Kingdom. Sadly hospitality in its truest, most beautiful sense has been lost. This book is such a gift to remind us of history and importance of welcoming strangers into our homes.

“Jesus gave his life so that persons could be welcomed into the Kingdom and in doing so linked hospitality, grace, and sacrifice in the deepest and most personal way imaginable.”

[Jacob Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. A lot to chew on and still much about practical implications that would need to be lived out to be understood. But the theological vision and retrieval is solid overall.