How did your hospitality start?

Our hospitality together began when we were members First Orthodox Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, Calif. Our pastor, Charles McIlhenny, called and told us that a person staying at the youth hostel behind our military housing needed an invitation to dinner. We had only cooked two chicken breasts and sides, but we invited him over anyway and split the meal. That isn’t what you would typically think of doing, but we’ve learned you don’t always have to make a five-course meal. Sometimes you just have pizza, if worse comes to worst. People just like being entertained and feeling like, “I’m welcome somewhere.”

John was in the army and on the board of the crisis pregnancy center in San Francisco, and we had tons of people over that we never knew. Since we were a military family, we had many opportunities to invite John’s unit over for meals, games, or other activities. A person involved in the crisis pregnancy center called to see if we would host someone from Washington State while he was in town for a conference. So we hosted him for a week. Cindy made her first Thanksgiving meal for the Army guys there—the first cooked all by herself—and she didn’t know how much work Thanksgiving was.

Both of us are Colorado natives. When we moved back to Denver, Colo., we always prepared a meal for Sunday and invited visitors or other church members. When the kids were older, they would often bring 8-10 friends over for an unplanned get-together. We always kept lots of spaghetti fixings and bread on hand for them.

When did you become the RP airport runners?

We started making airport trips when we moved near the Denver area airport. Some friends from Ft. Collins, Colo., would start a trip at our house. We would accompany them to the airport, drive their car home, and pick them up when they returned. Our kids also traveled often for their jobs. One time our oldest son arrived at the Denver airport and saw Pastor Bob Hemphill, who was stranded at the airport due to snow. Our son brought him back to his house. Later we picked up Bob, hosted him overnight, and then took him back to the airport the next morning.

All these interactions are a blessing in getting to know fellow believers at a deeper level. We would never trade for the regular weekly fellowship with fellow believers, but these interactions over significant periods of time create deeper fellowship.

Did your hospitality change st Westminster, Colo., RPC?

We’ve been going to Westminster RPC for 10-12 years. When we were without a pastor for about 2 years, most pastoral candidates came here and had lunch with us and a few other families. It just worked out as a chance to meet the candidate in our home. We had a core group of people that were often at our house.

When Westminster RPC was without a pastor, we had two families every week who were ready to host whoever came to visit. We rarely had people come to visit, but it turned into inviting other people from the church and having lunch with them.

In the RP denomination, we quickly realized how much interaction there was between members and churches within the presbytery and even coast to coast within the denomination. Covenanter Youth retreats, guest speakers, pulpit swaps, Geneva and other college trips, conferences and camps, and cross-country travelers all became opportunities to host people and/or ferry people to and from the airport. In the process, we got to know a lot of dear believers. Cindy says she feels like we’re family, the body of Christ, open and inviting people. Everyone in the church is our family, and most of the people in the army were our family. We have a very big definition of family. We’ve got lots of adopted kids. We’ve adopted the Stefans, and now another guy that lives in Aurora, Colo. [The Stefans are Pastor Patrick and Danielle Stefan, who now minister at Rochester, N.Y., RPC.]

When the Stefans lived in Aurora, Patrick was busy and Danielle had a young child to care for. So John went over and mowed, and he started doing a Shorter Catechism and Larger Catechism Bible study with Patrick. They were interested in being Reformed, so they started learning the catechism. We had a Bible study at their house with other Aurora families, Marines that Patrick brought to the study, and some families from the Westminster and Longmont RPCs, and some from Colorado Springs.

As a biblical (Rom. 12:10-13; 1 Pet. 4:9) and confessional (Westminster Larger Catechism 135, 144) denomination, we are encouraged to love one another in a broad sense and to show, among other actions, hospitality specifically in that context. Of course the Bible also says we have “gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us” (Rom. 12:6). We believe that God has blessed us with the grace of hospitality, and therefore we extend it as often as possible.

John and Cindy Greene are members of Westminster, Colo., RPC who have extended hospitality to many.