How to be Hospitable
Shortly after Jake and I moved to Seattle, I learned that I love opening our home to others. Perhaps it was because we finally had a place to call our own or because we craved community with others. All I knew was that I thrived on the opportunities to show hospitality. It started out rough when I almost served our first guest raw chicken, but overtime, we established a sweet rhythm of having people over for a cozy (completely cooked) dinner or a fun night of games. When we began to grow more burdened by the lostness in our city, we saw our home as a place to invite our neighbors or those questioning Christianity. And when our church began going through some hard changes, we saw our home as a place to make our brothers and sisters in Christ feel encouraged and seen.
When we think of hospitality, we often think of inviting others into our home. And while that is definitely a big part of it, biblical hospitality involves much more than this. Biblical hospitality involves bringing people into our home to show them the love of Christ. Our hospitality as believers is meant to point our guests to the One who offers us a home in Him. Thinking about hospitality in this way encourages us to obey the call in Scripture to pursue hospitality (Romans 12:13). But how do we show this hospitality?
Make yourself available
Most of us would likely say that we live busy lives. While this busyness is most often due to our work and home responsibilities, we can also contribute to our own busyness. We can say “yes” to too many requests or fill up our schedules with too many events. This causes us to have little margin for anything else. Even though there is nothing wrong with using our time for opportunities outside of our home, if we fill our schedules up too much, we don’t give ourselves time to open up our homes to others. When we create more margin for hospitality, we show love for others by sacrificing our time for them. It isn’t always easy to create this space, but when follow Paul’s exhortation to consider others as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3), we make ourselves available to others. Making ourselves available doesn’t mean that we clear our schedules completely or can’t say “yes” to things we want to do. Rather, it means that we create space to be hospitable if the opportunity presents itself. This could look like appointing one night a week as a night we always keep open and available. Or it could look like viewing any open times in our schedule as opportunities to invite someone over.
Have the right expectations
One of the obstacles we can encounter with hospitality is feeling like we don’t have what it takes to be hospitable. We might have a house full of kids and wonder how we can invite people over when toys are scattered throughout our home and the house hasn’t been cleaned for weeks. Or we might have a tight budget and wonder how we can feed someone when we struggle to feed ourselves. It’s freeing to know that hospitality doesn’t have to look a certain type of way. Hospitality doesn’t require a pristine home but an open home. Hospitality doesn’t require a luxurious meal but a loving heart. So if we want to become more hospitable, we need to let go of expectations to have an impressive space to gather or an amazing meal to prepare. When we become too focused on a spotless home or incredible meal, we lose sight of what hospitality is about. Hospitality is all about bringing people in to show them the love of Christ. And we can do this no matter what we serve or what our space looks like. So the more we lower our expectations and focus on the purpose of hospitality, the more we will relax and be okay with bringing someone in, even if our home is messy or all we have to serve is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Plan for intentional hospitality & prepare for spontaneous hospitality
Hospitality can either be intentional, in that it’s planned, or it can be spontaneous and unplanned. It’s helpful to keep both of these types of hospitality in mind as we seek to be hospitable. Planning for intentional hospitality could look like reaching out to people in advance and finding a night for them to come over for a meal. Or it could look like touching base with a friend a week or so in advance to find a time for them to come and have a cup of coffee. It could even look like bookmarking some tried and true recipes so you know exactly what to make when you have people over instead of stressing out over what to cook. Preparing for spontaneous hospitality might look like stocking up on some simple food items that could come in handy if someone comes to eat unexpectedly. Maybe it involves someone over on the fly and ordering a couple boxes of pizza. Or it might look like keeping the guest room clean or sheets and towels washed just in case someone needs a place to stay. Embracing both types of hospitality takes time, but the more you intentionally prepare and plan for both, the less overwhelming it will feel to execute that hospitality.
Our homes, no matter how big or small they may be, are gifts God gives us to bless others. So let’s take up the call to pursue hospitality with humility and joy. When we not only embrace but extend hospitality as believers, God’s mercy and grace are shown to those we invite in.