Building Community Through Hospitality: Insights from Ethiopia for America’s Loneliness Epidemic.

EMQ » Oct – Dec 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 4

Reviewed by Sarah Lunsford, PhD, instructor for Liberty University, author of Missiological Triage, former IMB missionary, and Book Review Editor for Evangelical Missions Quarterly. 

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Jessica Udall teaches intercultural studies residentially at Evangelical Theological College in Ethiopia and remotely for Columbia International University in the US. In Building Community Through Hospitality, an EMS monograph series dissertation publication, Udall encourages American churches to learn from Ethiopian perspectives on community and interdependence to resolve the hyperindividualism fueling their loneliness epidemic.  

The first chapter’s introduction follows standard dissertation topics such as rationale, terms, and methods. The second chapter includes a helpful literature review covering books on building community through hospitality from Western, African (general), and Ethiopian (particular) sources. One of the most helpful contributions of this section is the African concept of ubuntu “which emphasizes that all people are interconnected and that openness to connection with other people is fundamental to what it means to be human” (44), which Udall describes as an “I am because we are” approach that contrasts our Cartesian “I think therefore I am” perspective.  

In chapter three, Udall respectfully presents and evaluates interviews with forty-three Protestant Ethiopian immigrants to the US. She explains how their understanding of hospitality in Ethiopian culture, their understanding of biblical teaching on hospitality, and their perspectives on how a more robust understanding of hospitality might help American churches with their loneliness epidemic. Some common themes in these interviews include the necessary intentionality of presence, hospitality as an identity rather than a practice, as well as the recommendation for Westerners to challenge their commitment to privacy and their emphasis on the individual in favor of creating the time, space and attention for community relationships. 

Ethiopian concepts of hospitality are biblically integrated in chapter four. The concept of qiné hermeneutics is presented. In this, the transcendent ideal (the gold) is found through the mutually dependent struggle with immanent reality (the wax mold). This reveals the biblical resonance of Ethiopian collectivism and such themes as communion with God, communion with others, and the sharing of space and needs. The correlation between ubuntu (or the Ethiopian equivalent, medemer) and koinonia is made clear. The ontological nature of our interdependence is described. The hospitality of God in His mission is fleshed out. This chapter is full of rich insights and perspectives that have global church implications reaching far beyond the intended application for American loneliness.  

Udall presents practical recommendations for the American church in chapter five. “The recommendations include framing loneliness in terms of relational poverty, resisting (self)-development as a short-cut, identifying individualism as unhealthy, recognizing that identity shifts behavior, focusing on people over programs, and creating communal liturgies” (164). 

The specific topic of hospitality and its implications for loneliness will serve those who lead Western congregations in the US or internationally. Those working in missionary support roles with American missionaries will find helpful insights. Missionaries working among immigrant and refugee communities and those interested in global narratives will appreciate the way Udall presents her interviews. She synthesizes their themes to give insight into the collectivist mindset regarding interdependence and hospitality as an identity. The book models mutuality in the global church and the way that a Western-dominant perspective can be greatly improved by learning from the wealth of insights coming from the global church. Several of Udall’s points on our interdependence in the global church, alternative hermeneutical approaches such as qiné, and the mission of hospitality will be helpful to scholars and teachers of missiology. Leaders and strategists will likely be inspired to identify additional application points.   

For Further Reading

Mission as Hospitality: Imitating the Hospitable God in Mission by Edward Smither (Eugene: Cascade, 2021) 

Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear by Matthew Kaemingk (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018) 

An Ethic of Hospitality: The Pilgrim Motif in Hebrews and the Refugee Problem in Kenya by Emily Jeptepkeny Choge (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2020) 

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EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 4. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: [email protected].