Come and stay at our house

Lyrics

About this song

You need a place where you can rest
Relax and make yourself at home
Come inside and be our guest
(There's) no need for you to be alone
We want to make you welcome;
It's time for us to share
In friendly conversation,
Joy and laughter, love and prayer.

Come and stay at our house
And share in what we have
Open home and open heart
The proof of our love is the way we behave

We love to welcome people in
Share our home and share our food
Caring, helping, comforting
By serving them we worship God
We share what we've been given
And our hospitality
Will bring a piece of heaven
To the lives of those we see

Come and stay at our house… etc.

If we want to show our worship
To the God who is above
The best way we can do it
Is to demonstrate our love
Never fail to welcome strangers
With godly love and care
That way some have welcomed angels
Not knowing who they really were.

Come and stay at our house… etc.

This song is about hospitality. It is a lively, upbeat tune sung as a finale number by the whole cast and choir. In an earlier version of the script it was positioned as an invitation to Jesus, but it became an open invitation to everyone and an expression of one of the core values demonstrated by the Bethany family... they were hospitable. And their hospitality became a crucial factor in the development of the gospel story... because they were hospitable Jesus became a frequent visitor and a close friend... because he was a close friend their desperate appeal for him to come and heal Lazarus brought him back to Jerusalem at that most dangerous and significant times.

Hospitality is a key value of this musical. We make the audience part of the story and the action right from the start of the play. And we end up sitting and eating together, with no distinction between cast and audience.

Hospitality is, above all, a key value of the church. It is at the root of what we call fellowship. It changes Christianity from a ritual of memorials to a present expression of active love.