About Us
Statement of Hospitality
The Montreat Conference Center, as a mission center of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is committed to the practice of hospitality. Hospitality, as a Christian obligation and responsibility, is assumed by Montreat’s Mission Statement in its affirmation to call “all God’s people to a place set apart.”
Our understanding of hospitality is guided by the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, informed by the rich witness of Holy Scripture, and resonates with the words of Henri J. M. Nouwen:
In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found… It is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable place where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings…[T]hat is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest, and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.
Hugh B. Berry further articulates the purpose of hospitality as follows:
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance to the guest to find their own and then share it with the rest of us.
The Montreat Conference Center is committed to offering safe, hospitable space to all the members and constituencies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “space where change can take place,” even the very transformation made possible by the Holy Spirit.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
In its calling to Christian hospitality, the Montreat Conference Center does not adopt or endorse the policies or lifestyle statements of any group, agency or individual. Rather it allows each guest and leader the space to freely explore and express the practice of his or her own faith within the Reformed Christian tradition, thereby enriching and informing the entire faith community.
Approved by the MRA Board of Directors, March 15, 2002.
Adopted by the MRA Board of Directors, March 20, 1999.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Doubleday, 1986), 75, 46; as cited in Hugh B. Berry, Being a Welcoming Congregation (Louisville: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1996), 1. Hugh B. Berry, Being a Welcoming Congregation (Louisville: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1996), 10.