In her book entitled Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren Winner shares about her first encounter with Christian hospitality:

Few situations make me as uncomfortable as being a newcomer in a church where I know nothing and no one. Everyone else knows when to stand and sit and bow and smile, and everyone else has someone to talk to during coffee hour, and there I stand, awkward and ill at ease, my inner introvert yelling at me to go home and curl up with a novel … .

That was how it was my second Sunday in Charlottesville. I was at Christ Church, where I knew exactly two people. (One of them was my mother, and what single woman wants to get stuck at coffee hour eating donut holes with her mom?) After the service ended, I managed to silence my introvert long enough to introduce myself to a couple sitting in the pew behind me. "Hi," they said. "So pleased to meet you." I complimented the wife's shoes, the husband asked if I enjoyed the sermon, and then they said, "If you don't have plans for the Fourth of July, please come to our party."

Growing up Jewish, Winner had already experienced hospitality in Judaism, known by the Hebrew phrase hachnassat orchim, or "bringing in the guests." Now, as a new Christian, these simple expressions of hospitality became almost commonplace. As a result, she quickly learned what the church was supposed to look like: a community of people practicing hospitality towards guests, strangers, outsiders, and the poor and vulnerable.