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Quick! Be ready for hospitality

reading time: 7 minutes

When we think about preparing for hospitality, we imagine being in control. We issue an invitation a week or two in advance. We plan a menu. We clean the house. Sure, when the hour is upon us it might get a little hectic, but we knew it was coming.

Once we start opening our homes and ourselves up for more hospitality, however, the hospitality sometimes comes to us unbidden. If you’ve prayed for the opportunity to grow in hospitality, you will likely receive an answer to that prayer: which looks like hospitality you’re given rather than controlling.

We’ve done lots of planned-in-advance hospitality and that practice, which often felt very stretching at the time, paved the way for different kinds of hospitality. We’ve had extended house guests in a home without a guest room. We’ve had opportunities to meet someone new and say, “Hey, want to come over?” We’ve had afternoon calls that resulted in dinner invites for that evening.

Hospitality means “stranger-love,” not “put-on-an-impressive-production.” Our homes, like our lives, are not our own. The more we can use it not just as the family decompression place but also as the space for making others feel welcome — to town, to church, to know God, to family life, to homeschooling — the more we are making our homes a tool of investment, turning a profit, stewarding it as God’s resource rather than our own.

But maintaining a home that can be both a constant-use family stage as well as a tool ready for kingdom service is a challenge. We don’t have to wait until everything is perfectly under control before we expand out into hospitality. Instead, we pray to be ready and equipped and then we step out in faith when God sends the opportunity. Perfection not required.

Awhile back I received an email from a long-time reader and current Convivial Circle member about one such opportunity she had just been given. Here’s an edited version of her story:

Mystie Repent. Rejoice. Repeat.

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