19th October 2025 

Radical Hospitality: Being Interrupted

In the middle of a month when we are reflecting on the concept of radical hospitality, I shouldn't have been surprised when, at 7.15am last Thursday, a surprise phone call meant that God was calling me to put my theology and reflections into practice! During Wednesday night, Poundland on Penge High Street had caught fire, and the Bromley Council Emergency Planning Team wanted to use our St John's site as an evacuation point.

So I hurried over to St John's, unlocked the doors, put the coffee machine on and waited for a member of the emergency team who knew what was happening to arrive. When they did arrive, everything fell into place very quickly. The team set up a welcome and registration desk at the entrance, and an information point. A team of willing volunteers from HTSJ (to whom, again, thank you!) served tea and coffee, directed people to the toilets, found toys and games for the children. Various members of the Penge community turned up with large amounts of food, which the evacuees, who had been up since 4.30am, fell upon hungrily. The Lunch Club adapted their session and cooked some extra meals. We converted the downstairs office into a temporary housing hub and the upstairs room into a Muslim prayer space. During the day, police, the chief fire officer, Liam Conlon our MP and various others arrived to give updates and to support the families. By 6.30pm, everybody was either able to go back into their homes or into emergency accommodation, and we cleared up.

In his book, "Being Interrupted", Al Barrett, vicar of the parish of Hodge Hill in Birmingham, reflects that true mission, true hospitality doesn't happen in the planned moments, the organised events, but in the interruptions. All of us, last Thursday, had other plans, which were interrupted. And yet, in that interruption to routine, there were glimmers of the "holy chaos"* of God's kingdom, glimpses of the joy of welcoming people of many nations and languages, in various states of dress and undress, often with their pets, into a sacred space and, somehow, building a community. Radical hospitality is costly: it takes time, energy and effort. It's not glamorous (I spent most of the day filling and emptying the dishwasher). And it takes a team, working together. I'm so grateful to the Bromley Emergency Planning team, to the wonderful people from lunch club and HTSJ who turned up to help, and to everybody who prayed.

So, next time my schedule is interrupted, how will I react? I hope that I will recall God's presence in this situation. I hope that I will remember that God's schedule is not always mine. I hope I will see in that interruption something of the invitation to join in the "holy chaos"* of the Kingdom and the unpredictable work of the Spirit.



* this is how Archdeacon Allie described HTSJ last week... she preceded it by saying "I love coming here because..." so I'm assuming it's meant positively!!