(1) Make sure to introduce yourself first, rather than asking their name. Such a simple gesture indicates that you are open and will invite an open response. In that same line of reasoning, try to avoid interviewing people you have just met. If you want to get to know them, it is usually better to offer a short story from your day or week and wait for one in return.
(2) Put aside your Lutheran heritage that has taught you that you are extraordinarily average and undeniably uninteresting, and be willing to talk a little bit about yourself. Tell a brief story about something funny or interesting that happened during your week. Share a thought about the hymns that day or the gospel lesson. When asked how you are doing, tell the truth. Admit that the week gone by was exhausting because of a big deadline or exciting because your child started walking. This is our Christian family, where we are supposed to encounter partners in our earthly journey.
(3) Make sure to listen well. Here’s a simple trick to help you listen well: listen as if you will be required to pass on what they tell you to someone else, such as to your spouse or best friend. That way, you’ll likely remember what they told you next week when you see them again.
(4) When talking with others, especially in a small group, be conscious of not closing the circle of conversation with your bodies or your posture or your volume level. Leave an opening in the group for others to fit in. Even if others do not join in, they will still sense your openness to them.
(5) If you are terribly shy about approaching others, a smile can go a long way to expressing your openness and may even invite someone to approach you and start the conversation.
When Martin Marty was in town back in January, he talked about hospitality as the act (art) of sharing yourself with others (especially strangers) and accepting their sharing of themselves with you. According to professor Marty, hospitality goes beyond what most of us think it to be. We often have been taught ideas about hospitality and manners of expressing hospitality that end up missing the mark of true hospitality and end up closer to tolerance, where we are counseled to be polite to those who are different even while we still presume ourselves to in fact be correct or superior. Professor Marty also reminded us that true hospitality accrues no balance due between the participants. We do not share what we have with plans of receiving in return, not even in the distant future. How many of us, he asked, can go to dinner at a friend’s house and not feel obligated to return the favor and invite them to our house to repay them?